Mariko Hori Tanaka, ‘Samuel Beckett and Tadashi Suzuki’

Tadashi Suzuki, a world-famous director known for his eponymous training method, remarks that he was influenced by Samuel Beckett. Though he himself has not undertaken to direct Beckett, he uses scenes from Beckett in his directorial work.

Suzuki, along with other young Underground artists, resisted the establishment and questioned the status quo and rationality in general, expressing madness and indecency. The impetus of that resistance came out of feelings of defeat within the political movements of the 1960s to make societal change. The dream of their revolution did not come true and this sense of defeat, despair and hopelessness were presented by Underground artists. Suzuki admits that his characters, whether they are in Greek plays or Shakespeare, are ‘fight[ing] the battle of the defeated’ (Suzuki, The Way of Acting, 110). Suzuki’s theatrical works and his emphasis on stamping functioned as the recovery of the body and the spirit that have been estranged since the Meiji era. There are comparable approaches to the body in the work of each of these artists; what Suzuki demands is similar to what Beckett seeks from actors. In this talk, I will explore how Beckett is influential in Suzuki’s work and how Suzuki’s directorial method and philosophy are akin to what Beckett demands of his actors.

Douglas Atkinson, Saying I: Beckett and Modern Japanese Literature

The goal of this paper is to explore a very peculiar phenomenon in Beckett scholarship, namely the perplexing reception of Beckett’s prose in Japan. As Tajiri Yoshiki has demonstrated, in contrast to the reception of his theatrical works, Beckett’s prose has played only a minor role in 20^th century Japanese Literature, with few if any major authors acknowledging the influence of Beckett’s prose.  Given the stated centrality of the prose in regard to his own work, this response is strange enough. However, when we scratch beyond the surface of Modern Japanese Literature, the absence of a meaningful response to Beckett’s prose shows the signs of a deeper, and potentially darker, mystery to be solved.

As such, this paper will follow the work of Karatani Kojin and other major thinkers in Modern Japanese Literature in an attempt to situate – thematically and historically – what I have termed the ‘non-reception’ of Beckett’s prose in Japan.  My primary focus will be to show the striking similarities between Beckett’s prose and the Japanese shishōsetsu, or “I-Novel”, in order to forge a new vantage from which to contextualize the (non)reception of Beckett’s prose in Japan.  

To attend this session please book via the following link, the meeting link will be circulated shortly before the session:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/samuel-beckett-japan-a-virtual-seminar-series-tickets-546224822147

Series Organisers: Mariko Hori Tanaka (Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo), Michiko Tsushima (University of Tsukuba), Kumiko Kiuchi (Tokyo Institute of Technology), Yoshiko Takebe (Shujitsu University), and Trish McTighe (Queen’s University Belfast). For queries relating to the event and booking please contact t.mctighe@qub.ac.uk.