Citizens of Tokyo: Six Plays [Paperback]

Citizens of Tokyois the first collection in English of plays by one of Japan’s most important contemporary playwrights, Oriza Hirata, whose works have been performed all over the world. The first part ofCitizens of Tokyo, “At Home and Abroad,” presents two plays—Toyko NotesandKings of the Road—that are exemplary of Hirata’s unique neorealist dramaturgy, which created one of the most important trends in Japanese theater since the 1990s: Quiet Theatre. The second part of the book presents two short comedies that satirize the politics of decision-making in Japan and abroad: “Loyal RMnin: The Working Girls’ Version” and “The Yalta Conference.” The final part, “Robots and Androids are People Too,” presents two short plays created in collaboration with Ishiguro Hiroshi and the Osaka University Robot Theatre Project. The plays are accompanied by a context-setting introduction from editor and cotranslator M. Cody Poulton.
 

Oriza Hiratais artistic director of the Seinendan Theatre Company, which he founded in 1983 while still in college. Besides his own plays, which tour both in Japan and abroad, he is a director of other playwrights’ work and an influential commentator on contemporary social and political issues. At present, Hirata is research professor of the COI Research Promotion Office at the Tokyo University of the Arts.M. Cody Poultonhas been teaching Japanese literature, theater, and culture at the University of Victoria in Canada since 1988 and is coeditor ofThe Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Drama.
 

“Hirata’s staid, colloquial style coupled with a keen sense of history and occasional magic-realist twists marked a clear contrast with the more poetically flamboyant and physically hyperactive plays of the foregoing generations including Hideki Noda and Jkro Kara. His playsl|