AKEMI HORIE
theatre/opera director, film maker
Musician, choreographer and academic.
Studied
with Jan Kott, whose radical approach to the theatre has been influential.
Research
fields: Sophocles and Samuel Beckett.
Expert
on Kabuki and
Noh theatres. Pioneered
experimental work interpreting
the
Noh dramaturgy and aesthetics
in modern theatrical terms.
Japanese
citizen; UK resident. Brief
Biography
Contact
BA: Humanities, International
Christian University, Tokyo
MFA:
Theatre Arts, School of Fine and Applied Arts, Boston University.
PhD:
Dramatic Art, University of California, Berkeley
Film
making: New York Film Academy
As
a theatre director my work is distinctly minimalist, achieving powerful
theatricality with the sparest of means.
"Compelling", "restrained but eloquent",
"utterly clear and focused", "incredibly pure",
"incredibly strong" are some of the reviewers' comments on my recent
productions. I thrive on the
spatial constraints of theatre, which compel inventiveness; equally, I relish
the visual and temporal freedom in film storytelling.
AMONG PLAYS
DIRECTED: The Cyclops (Euripides); Blood Wedding (Lorca);The Choephori (Aeschylus); The Well-Stone (Zeami); Sotoba Komachi (Kan'ami); The Wild Duck (Ibsen); Three Sisters (Chekhov); Friends (Abe); The Dreaming of the Bones (Yeats); Endgame, Come and Go, Krapps Last Tape (Beckett); The Cliff of Time (Abe); Vatzlav (Mrozek); Kesho (Inoue). Also premieres of Paul
Barker's operas The Pillow Song and Malinche for the London International Opera
Festival and a short film One Night or Day.
WORK
IN PROGRESS
Ludus
Danielis (The Play of Daniel): A rarely staged late 12th century music drama
based on the biblical tales of the exiled prophet Daniel, in collaboration with
The Harp Consort. The premire took place in January 2007 at Southwark
Cathedral, London, and Kings College Chapel, Cambridge, gaining very positive responses from the audience and the press. More
on Daniel Flyer (front back)
Review of the premire
performance by Michael Church of The Independent (5 stars):
Southwark Cathedral forms a stage-set beyond compare, while on
a dais in the middle of the chancel stands an elongated red-lacquer chair, like
a ladder to heaven - As a
musical event, this would charm the birds off the trees a beguiling blend of
conviction and joie de vivre, plus a uniquely deft mix of medieval musical
sounds the modal music that results creates a wonderfully dreamy ambiance. Daniel
Review in full More Pics Video Clips
Yabu
no Naka/In the Grove: a murder mystery, a Cubist vision of a whodunnit, based on a short story by the Japanese author Ryunosuke Akutagawa, famously the source
for Kurosawa's film classic Rashomon. (Brief
Notes). The
Persians:
the oldest extant play, an anti-war drama written in 472BC by Aeschylus, recounting the catastrophic
defeat of the Persians in the Battle of Salamis (480BC). In the original form with its substantial chorus/musical parts. King Lear: a stripped-down essential
Shakespeare, applying Noh dramaturgy.
SELECTED WORKS
Contemporary
Noh
A
trilogy comprising the Noh play Sotoba Komachi, the kyogen The Melon Thief and Journey, a collage based on three works of
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, Endgame and Worstward Ho.
On the Noh stage, time takes on
non-monotonic references, the past is in the present and the phenomenal world
merges into the worlds beyond.
Sotoba
Komachi recounts the tale of a once legendary
beauty (a 9th century historical figure), now possessed by the spirit of a
taunted suitor and cursed to live on into decrepitude. An encounter between two
pilgrim monks and a mysterious old woman unfolds the drama. The 14th century
Noh classic by Kan'ami, performed here with new music and choreography, initiates a thematic journey into
the post-modern world of Samuel Beckett.
Journey, echoing the Noh dramaturgy, portrays an encounter between Clov
of Endgame,
on his perpetual journey in limbo since leaving Hamm, and the two men on a
country road still waiting for Godot. What message would Clov impart to the two
waiting men? A single soprano voice as the Chorus sings unaccompanied passages
from Worstward Ho. And Clov is heard muttering
passages from it as he goes.
The
Melon
Thief,
an anonymous medieval comic interlude (kyogen), performed here in a timeless
context, bridges the two distinct worlds of Kan'ami and Beckett.
This
project interprets the medieval Noh drama in modern theatrical terms, freeing
it from the extreme formalism of performance developed during the 17th
and 18th centuries, when it was adopted as the official Ceremonial
Music, Shikigaku, by
successive military regimes.
In
summer 1989 I wrote to Beckett explaining the project and how I would combine
his three works in a collage in Noh form.
A copy of Sotoba Komachi was also sent. I was taking great liberties with his works after all by
assuming that Clov indeed left Hamm at the end of Endgame and by postulating a
chance encounter between Clov and the two waiting men. I mentioned also that the three characters
would speak selected lines from his plays in the collage, and that the Chorus
would sing, and Clov would speak, passages from Worstward Ho. Beckett gave me permission to
proceed,
with brief but kind words of encouragement.
Journey:
A Variation on Beckett
Reviews:
"Deliberately
understated work of this kind, with a few props and costumes, needs to invest
much emotion in the spare and significant Director Akemi Horie and Simon O'Corra with set and lighting
succeed in bringing out the poetry of these immediately appealing pieces
charged with a tension and resonance belying their apparent simplicity"
Gerard van Werson, The Stage, Werson
in full text
"These three plays endeavour to make 14th century Noh
theatre modern and universal: there are no masks and two are performed in
modern dress The third piece Journey is an amalgam of three Beckett plays,
which is incredibly strong although quite hard to discern the Noh input. Fine
performances, and worth seeing." Nina-Anne Kaye, City Limits, Kaye
"This profound piece is striking for its sombre philosophy
and vibrant poetry, both expressed with quiet strength and atmospheric
elegance" Brian G Cooper,
The Stage, Cooper
Performers:
Ruth Posner (Komachi), Martin Lawton (Chorus, Didi), Richard Tyrrell (Priest,
Clov), Stephen Webber (Priest, Gogo). Musicians: Amanda Broome (soprano);
Rowland Sutherland (wind instruments & drums). Direction & choreography: Akemi Horie. Music: Ho Wai-On. Lighting & set: Simon O'Corra. Costumes: Dawn Allsopp. Translation of Komachi text: Arthur Waley.
Performed
at Theatre Musium, London, WC2; Komachi also
at
ICA, London SW1, and Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadlers Wells, London EC1
Vatzlav by Slamomir
Mrozek
A
satirical farce by the Polish playwright, riotously performed at the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe. Vatzlav, a shipwrecked runaway slave, is washed up on the
shore of a capitalist colony, ruled by the raspberry-sucking Mr 
Bat and his dysfunctional family.
Forced to impersonate a bear, he fights off each peril with streetwise
ingenuity, turning young Justine/Justice into a striptease performer and
himself into a capitalist entrepreneur along the way. Then comes the revolt
-
77 short scenes were performed at a
rapid tempo, like a cartoon strip, with the actors moving portable cardboard
trees, etc., to set their own scene. Vatzlav
Stills
Reviews:
"A rich experience, a web of spreading images The small cast of Cambridge Actors
Workshop conjures up a remarkably complete caricature of society. The piece is loud and colourful and has
an engaging tendency to shoot off in all directions while retaining a sort of
loony unity. Zany"
Colin Currie, The Scotsman
"The Actors
Workshop in Cambridge staged Waclaw (Vatslav) at this year's
Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I wish
to emphasize the full success achieved by this ambitious and talented young
group of actors. In large measure this is due to the work of the director,
Akemi Horie, a Japanese lady, who with unusual sensitivity managed to penetrate
the strange atmosphere intended and created by the author the result of which
has been not so much a philosophical play but a clever sharp political
satire." Tadeurz
Ziarvki, The Polish Daily (Translated from Polish).
Performers: Bruce Addison (Vatzlav),
Beatrice Braude (Lackey), Nicholas Frankau (Sassafras), Robin Frost
(Quail, Genius), Eithne Hannigan
(Justine), Craig McConnell (General Barbaro), Mavis Mitchell (Mrs.Bat), Stephen
Reed (Mr.Bat, Oedipus, Executioner), Richard Sisson (Bobbie). Direction: Akemi Horie. Designs: Sarah
Percy-Lancaster. Lighting: Ian
Larkin. Sound: Nick Brown.
Performed at Corn Exchange,
Cambridge; Walpole Hall, Edinburgh.
Three
Sisters by Anton Chekhov The late Chekhovian plays, though rooted in the
Naturalistic convention of the period, contain the seeds of the modern
Absurdist vision, that culminates in Samuel Becketts Endgame. The thematic parallels between Three Sisters and Waiting for Godot, and The Cherry Orchard and Endgame, are remarkable.
In
Three Sisters
in particular, the Naturalistic form seems at times overwhelmed by the authors
impulse to create a concrete Absurdist vision on stage. Note the loose episodic structure; the
metaphors, flowers, wintry wind, fire and dead tree, defining each act; the
heightened almost grotesque characterization of Andrey, Natasha, Soliony and
Koolyghin; and the seemingly unrelated dialogue and asides in the background
commenting on the main action, like a Chorus. And mythical 'Moscow', like
Godot, hangs over the entire play.
In
this production the sunny flower-filled opening scene is progressively stripped
bare as the play moves towards a bleak world of fading hopes. Performed with
the minimum dcor, without four walls, without intermission, to bring out the
essentials of the play.
Review:
"I loved it -
it was so well-laid out before me; I felt there was so much going on. Your
production has converted me to this play, for the first time, even though I had
already seen several productions"
Letter from Paul Chand,
critic and friend.
SLIDE SHOW SEQUENCES FROM ACT I IV: Sisters Slides Show
VIDEO CLIP: Irena
Crisis Act lll
Recorded
at Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler's Wells, London EC1
QuickTime,
streaming.
Performers:
Silas Hawkins (Andrey), Ruth
Bennett (Natasha), Michaela
Burgess (Olga), Sarah Montague
(Masha), Josephine Peer
(Irena), Garry Scanlan
(Koolyghin), Leslie Aston
(Vershinin), Tim Mitchell
(Toozenbach), Andy Blacksmith
(Soliony), Richard Gofton
(Chebutykin), David Hallen
(Fedotik, Rode), Stephen Bateman
(Ferapont), Ruth Posner (Anfisa). Translation by Elisaveta Fen. Direction: Akemi Horie. Designs: Anabel Temple. Lighting: Ian Watts.
Olga Knipper (the author's wife and the first
Masha) recalls in her memoir that when Chekhov gave the first reading of the
play at the Moscow Arts Theatre in October 1900, the dismayed actors reacted
that the play was only a "sketch" or "outline" with
"no fully developed characters." Chekhov, smiling in embarrassment and coughing intensely,
responded that he had only written "a light-hearted comedy." Stanislavsky (the first Vershinin) also
recalls that Chekhov was convinced that the play was incomprehensible and
destined to fail. Three Sisters
premiered on 31 January 1901 at the Moscow Arts Theatre. The initial press
response was mixed: "a major event", "too pessimistic and
hopeless", "puzzling indistinctness of plot and character
motivation" - echoed by the press reception that greeted the premire of
Waiting for Godot half a century later.
Resonances
of Passion A programme of two Noh plays,
pairing the 14th century classic Izutsu by Zeami with a modern western counterpart, The
Dreaming of the Bones by W.B. Yeats.
Izutsu (The Well-Stone) tells the story of a woman (a
historical figure) whose spirit remained attached to the locus of her passion
centuries after her death. A chance encounter between a pilgrim monk and a
young woman at an abandoned temple unfolds the drama.
The
object of her passion Ariwara no Narihira was a renowned poet of the 9th
century, legendary also for his handsome amorous persona. His poems appear in
the anthology Kokinshu (905), which also contains some by the
heroine, known as Ki no Aritsunes daughter. As Zeami tells it, the ancient
well in the abandoned temple grounds was where the two used to play as
children. Several of the poems they exchanged are woven into the play.
In
The
Dreaming
of
the
Bones
(1919) Yeats applies the Noh formula to a political subject, the aftermath of
the 1916 Easter Rising, and its historical roots. A young nationalist meets a
mysterious couple when lost in the mountains. He has fought in Dublin and will
be shot if he is caught. The couple offer to guide him to safety but they want
something in return - something he cannot or will not give.
The
mysterious pair turn out to be Diarmuid MacMurrough (1100-71), king of
Leinster, and his lover Devorgilla, wife of the Lord of Breifne. As the legend
has it, their fatal passion led to MacMurroughs banishment. He fled to
England, and was licensed by Henry II to enlist volunteers, with whom he invaded
his own country, eventually capturing Dublin in 1170. The Anglo-Norman presence
has remained in Ireland ever since.
Yeats
was greatly inspired by the Noh theatre via his young friend Ezra Pound. Here the urgent political theme is
given a poetic aspect with its mythical dimension drawing on old Celtic
beliefs. The play was not
performed until 1931 because of its political content, which Yeats himself
feared might be "too powerful".
Performed
by six actors and two musicians, wind instruments and percussion, with the
minimum of dcor. The Irish composer Paddy Cunneen created the music for both
plays through exploratory workshops with the cast and the musicians.
Programme more notes on plays, authors &
history
Reviews:
"On the floor of the deep, wide stage, ropes outline a
square, and inside this a small block decorated with grasses represents a
grave, and a larger, white block the well-head - and in the Yeats play the
summit of a mountain in County Clare.
The restraint of the settings may sound austere but their precision
gives all we need to know. On one side of the square sit the musicians The unshowy grace of Justin Allder's
Diarmuid and his queen (Amanda Stephens Lee) as they sedately dance, arms almost
touching but separated by grief, gives this production its sorrowful grandeur
I have never before experienced so convincing an expression of the tensions and
beauty of this exotic genre."
Jeremy Kingston, The Times Kingston in full text
"Yeats, himself aiming at a meeting of East and West, was
remarkably well served.
Poetry flared briefly in our imaginations, and in its reflected glow
theatre came gloriously alive." Nicholas Dromgoole, The Sunday Telegraph
"The staging is simple and incredibly pure, the performers
creating just exactly the right degree of stylization for their performance,
able to make the poetic text both believable and appropriately symbolic Paddy Cunneen (composer) has really
crafted a Britten-like opera The sound hovered creatively between Japanese and
Western styles (with fantastic playing of Japanese instruments) creating a
multi-cultural, kaleidoscopic experience.
The direction stands out as peculiarly restrained yet eloquent - simple
images and extraordinarily slow pacing made the experience almost like a
meditation, possibly a little austere, but utterly clear and focused " Arts
Council
VIDEO CLIPS:
Izutsu 1 Opening Yeats
1 Opening
Izutsu 2 Entrance Yeats
2 Encounter
Izutsu 3 Story Yeats
4 Near Summit
Izutsu 4 Childhood Yeats
5 Dance & Last Chorus Song
Izutsu
5 Comic Interlude (silent, double speed)
Performers:
Amanda Stephens Lee (Young Woman), Justin Allder (Villager, Stranger), Reg Eppey
(Chorus/Baritone), Richard Gofton (Monk, Chorus/Tenor), Walter Van Dyk
(Narihira, Chorus/Tenor), Andy Wisher (Young Man, Chorus/Bass). Musicians: Clive Bell (wind instruments
& electric harp), Malcolm Ball (percussion). Direction, design, choreography: Akemi Horie. Music: Paddy Cunneen. Lighting: Simon Bennison, Neil
Fraser. Costume, props: Jess
Curtis. New translation of Izutsu by
Richard Gofton with Akemi Horie
Recorded during performance at The Place Theatre, London WC1
QuickTime,
streaming, edited in part.
The Libation by
Aeschylus
An exploration of The
Choephori,
the
second play of the trilogy The Orestia. In Aeschylus version of the myth, Orestes and Electra are
impressionable youths, uncertain and fearful of their god-ordained duty of
revenge. 
They must rely on the guidance of
the Chorus, who are themselves enslaved Trojan women and can only give voice to
the forces of Nemesis.
In
this production, the Chorus, in voicing the law of vengeance, speak in the
original Greek, a language that the young heroes do not comprehend at first;
indeed the sound of it frightens them. But inevitably they begin to copy the
alien words, word by word. By the time they carry out the matricide they have
come to speak the language of Nemesis fluently.
Reviews:
"Akemi Horie's production makes explicit this metaphor of
enmeshment. Various contrasting
nets envelop the stage and are used to good effect Quite a lot of the original
Greek is retained, combined with the fluent Chicago translation. It is most
impressive when being intoned by the chorus of bitter slave women, especially
where they urge on Electra and her brother to revenge. The harshness and foreboding of the
intonation is matched by the almost aggressive asymmetry of the positioning of
actors on stage (How refreshing not to see a static chorus) and the atonality
of the accompanying Tibetan music (which is reminiscent of the African music in
Pasolini's Oedipus Rex)."
Cambridge University Broadsheet
"The chilling intensity of the drama with the remorseless
chanting of the Greek chorus and the stark imagery of the huge net of death is
both compelling and engrossing"
Brian Cooper, The Stage
Cooper
in full text
Produced
on three different occasions with a different cast. Libation
Stills
Performers for the London production: Laurissa Kalinowsky (Electra), Peter Kenny (Orestes), Julia Righton (Clytemnestra), Christopher Brown (Aegisthus), Martin Lawton (Agamemnon), Joolia Cappleman, Liz Dickinson, Philippa Luce, Ruth Posner, Deborah Shipley, Joyce Springer (Trojan Women). Direction, design & choreography: Akemi Horie. Lighting: Ian Watts. Costume: Jacqueline Fitt.
Performed at ADC Theatre, Cambridge; ICA, London W1; Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadlers Wells, London, EC1.
Kesho
& Toki no Gake
A programme of two contemporary Japanese
plays, representing the two main streams of modern Japanese Theatre.
In
Kesho (Make-up), Hisashi Inoue, writing wholly within the
indigenous tradition, weaves an ingenious mono-dialogue, probing the mind of
the actress-manager of a strolling kabuki troupe - a dying tradition in
contemporary Japan.
In her dressing room, the actress
Satsuki is making up as the young male outlaw hero she is about to play. She is
alone on stage but talks to her actors off stage. As she begins to rehearse her
lines, moving in and out of the play within a play, the story of the young
outlaw, searching for his birth mother, and her own story of a long lost son,
begin to intersect, and the line between the real and fictional becomes
increasingly blurred. The invisible characters she led us to believe in, it now
seems, could have been just figments of her troubled mind. As the raucous cries
of demolition men off-stage intrude on her make-believe, the evening no longer
seems routine: they want her out so they can bulldoze the theatre. Kesho
Stills
In
Toki no Gake (The Cliff of Time), Kobo Abe, writing in a post-modern context,
spins out the fragments of thoughts that pass through the mind of a young boxer
as he fights in the ring. His mind's monologue floats over the noise and
commotion of the fight, interrupted now and then by the urging voice of his
trainer, which momentarily jolts him back to the bout at hand. The boxer fights
on the edge of the cliff of time, up to the fourth round, then it seems he is
finished. Written as the middle play of Abes trilogy Bo ni Natta
Otoko (The Man Who Turned into a
Stick).
A prolific writer of narratives and plays, Abe was one of the first post-war
Japanese writers to receive international accolades. His work reflects the
influences of such European writers as Ionesco and Arrabal.
Reviews:
Kesho "The lights go up on a
dressing room and the recumbent form on the floor of Yoko Satsuki, the actress-manager
of a band of strolling players who keep alive the faded tradition of popular
kabuki style period melodrama. With a scratch of her bottom, she awakes to
prepare for her role as Isaburo, a young outlaw hero The dividing-line between the play and the play within
the play is so skilfully blurred that the two lives frequently meld into
one." John
Coldstream, The Daily Telegraph
Toki no Gake
"On a darkened stage the only objects visible
are a red punch-bag, a line of vertical ladders and the spot-lit head and
shoulders of Richard Tyrrell playing a young boxer steeling himself for the
fight he must win or forfeit his vital ranking. The thoughts he speaks alternate between foolish hope and
panic, unconsciously humorous (a balance neatly achieved in Donald Keene's
translation) and dreamily poetic.
The shadows of his boxing fists flicker at the periphery of the spot-lit
area but the gathering drama is measured in the subtle changes in Tyrrell's
face (imagine Kafka with a grin) and his feverish nerviness of
voice." Jeremy
Kingston, The Times
"A brilliantly clear, economical style" Paul Chand, The Stage
Performers: Jackie Skarvellis (Yoko Satsuki), Richard Tyrrell
(Boxer), James Ramsey (Voice)
Direction:
Akemi Horie. Designs: Jan Blake.
Lighting: Tina MacHugh.
Translations:
Toki no Gake
by Donald Keene; Kesho by Akemi Horie, published with Notes on the Background of Kesho, in Encounter, No.5, 1989.
Performed
at Bloomsbury Theatre, London WC1
One Night or Day A short film inspired by an evocative passage in Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett, recalling the end
of a love affair on a lake.
Elements of his short narratives Stirrings Still and One Evening are also present.
The hero has kept a record of his
life's events on 16mm film. In his dotage, he spends his days rewinding loose
filmstrips - fragments of his life - back onto their reels. On this particular night or day, he
comes across the alluring image of a young woman in a sunny boat. Memories flood back. Her enigmatic smile lures him onto the
street, and to the upper lake, apparently the locus of their last rendezvous.
The
camera follows the old man's real or imagined journey. Shot in black and white
with an Arriflex 16mm camera.
Key
Passages from Krapp's Last Tape, Stirrings still, One Evening
Script One Night or Day
One Night or Day, abridged version, digitally edited,
single sound track.
Performers:
Phyllida Bannister (Young Woman), Richard Gofton (Old Man), Ruth Posner (Old
Woman).
Writer/Director/Editor:
Akemi Horie. Director of
Photography: Deena Lombardi.
Assistant Camera: Zac De Santiago.
miscellaneous
Friends
by Kobo Abe A whimsical black comedy by the author of
the acclaimed Woman
of the Dunes (film version Cannes Palme dOr)
featuring a family of eight on a mission to search out a lonely soul on whom to
bestow their friendship. Forcefully inviting themselves into a young man's
flat, they take over his household, and his fiance, devouring him with their
love and attention in the end. Even the police, called in to investigate the
offence, fail to detect any harm in the sweet smiling faces of the family.
Performed in the round in Donald Keenes
translation at the Questors Theatre, London W5 Friends Stills
Japanese Theatre and the West An
International Theatre Symposium aiming to promote creative interactions between
the Japanese and Western theatres. Organized for the Japan Festival 91 in
association with the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Japan Research
Centre, SOAS, University of London. The meeting assembled leading scholars and
artists in the field from sixteen nations, with Jan
Kott (Poland), Georges Banu (France), Leonard Pronko (USA), Nicola Savarese
(Italy), Zvika Seper (Israel) and Yasunari Takahashi (Japan) among the
contributors. Also participating were three performing companies, Pohlyboveho
Divadla (Czech Republic), Umewaka Noh Troup (Japan) and Workshop 5 (UK). The four-day event held at the ICA
comprised a programme of lectures, demonstrations, workshops and performances.
The proceedings were published by Harwood Academic Publishers in 1994 as Contemporary
Theatre Review,
Special Edition, Japanese Theatre and the West, ed. Akemi Horie-Webber
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