午夜剧场

If I were to introduce myself by saying, "I research the 'voice' in contemporary theater," most people would likely imagine methods for developing a charming, beautiful voice or acting techniques for conveying words and emotions clearly. However, the voices I have dealt with thus far are, on the contrary, those where words and emotions are indistinct—voices that seem on the verge of vanishing, or perhaps ear-splitting screams and voices that induce nausea.

In contemporary theater, one frequently hears voices that are far removed from what is generally called a "beautiful voice." What is heard in such voices, whether we as listeners like it or not, are the fleeting scratches left on our ears by the body existing there. I believe that at the root of the attempt to make those traces resonate and remain in someone's ear is an affirmation of the fact that an individual human being exists there and is appealing for something. One is not permitted to exist there or appeal to their surroundings because they are useful to someone or because they are sought after by someone. I think I am interested in activities that remind us of that fact.

Performing arts can be described as an art form that prepares a unique space for these kinds of "voices" that are difficult to make resonate in daily life. There, the audience is welcomed as listeners and is asked to temporarily cease their own speaking and concentrate on the act of listening. However, what they are asked to listen to is not necessarily the performer's own voice. Among the staged works I have handled, there are those dealing with atomic bomb survivors in Nagasaki; for example, in those cases, the performer becomes a mediator between the survivor outside the theater and the audience inside. They use their exceptional skills not to project their own voice, but to make perceived the voices that have already vanished in distant lands, or voices that are about to vanish. In that space, the performer is also a listener more than a narrator.

Modern people, driven by intense global competition, are so preoccupied with promoting themselves that they tend to forget the act of listening to the "voices" of others—especially the "voices" of those who have lost in that competition. But is a society where everyone strives toward such a way of life truly happy? To build a truly rich society, don't we need a place to occasionally pause and reflect on what the competition was for in the first place?