- January 4, 2024
Mainichi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest dailies, recently published my article on the government’s scandalous mismanagement of the nation’s soon-to-be-rebuilt National Theater, dedicated to Kabuki and other traditional performing arts. The theater’s travails have been widely noted in the Japanese press, but there has been little analysis of why the troubles have arisen or how to resolve them. I offer my view below.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20231228/p2a/00m/0op/003000c
Japan’s fumbling National Theater grasps for relevance
Japan’s grandiose plans for rebuilding its money-losing National Theater have been upended by reality. Its troubles have disturbing implications for the very arts it aims to protect.
Reconstruction plans for Japan’s National Theater, devoted to Kabuki, Bunraku puppet dramas and other traditional arts, are becoming a national embarrassment in a growing scandal over government spending and competence.
The theater, which staged its final performance in October prior to its planned demolition, has struggled in recent years to attract audiences, especially for Kabuki, and has remained mired in red ink, a problem exacerbated but not created by the coronavirus pandemic. For its part, the government says that the 57-year-old complex is showing its age and needs upgrading for earthquake proofing and replacement of obsolete facilities. It contends that it is easier and cheaper to tear down the structure and start over rather than refurbish the existing building.
Its actions, however, hint at other factors at work. It has presented a grandiose vision of a multi-purpose tower complex encompassing a luxury hotel and high-end retail stores and restaurants above the theater, and it had opened the bidding up to private developers through a private finance initiative (PFI). The project was to cost 80 billion yen (about $562 million) of taxpayer money and take an inordinate seven to eight years to complete, during which time state-sponsored Kabuki would be halted entirely and the quarterly Bunraku shows would be shifted to other locations.
The government never addressed why it believed that audiences who are not showing up now will come to a rebuilt theater in the same location, but its hopes for a large tower would suggest that it is seeking to make money outside the arts, content to let the cultural side continue to generate losses. That is, the government has shown no awareness of the issues that have not only stymied the theater’s viability but post a severe threat to the future of the traditional performing arts.
In the event, the proposed project did not receive a single bid in two separate tries as private companies rejected the plans as unrealistic. The government blames the soaring cost of materials along with security-related restrictions due to the location across from the Imperial Palace. The problems look to delay the scheduled reopening by another one to two years, leaving the traditional arts without a national home for nearly a decade.
The Japanese theater community had proposed a national venue as long ago as the Meiji period (1868-1912), but those dreams were not realized until the high-growth post-1964 Olympic years. Built on former military grounds next door to the Supreme Court, the complex opened in 1966 with a 1,600-seat Grand Theater devoted primarily to Kabuki and a 590-seat Small Theater for Bunraku, traditional dance and other arts. It proved an instant success. The 300-seat Engei Hall was added in 1979 for more intimate arts like one-man Rakugo comedies. (The national theater system has since expanded to four other locations with the National Noh Theater (1983) in Tokyo dedicated to the ancient masked drama; the National Bunraku Theater (1984) in Osaka, the art’s birthplace; the controversial New National Theater (1997) in Tokyo for opera and other Western arts; and the National Theater Okinawa (2004) in Naha celebrating Ryukyu culture. These remain in operation.)
The stated purpose of the National Theater is the preservation and promotion of Japan’s traditional performing arts. It revived forgotten shows now considered classics and attracting new works in traditional style by the likes of Yukio Mishima and others. As Kabuki is also produced in the private sector, the National concentrated on rarely staged full-length productions running up to nine hours that would not be considered commercially viable. Bunraku is not produced commercially and was long since taken over by the public sector, so the theater gave the art a stable home in Tokyo, where its productions regularly sold out.
That theater was also a premier venue for Nihon Buyo dance and an occasional showcase for ancient Gagaku and other Japanese arts. It also has a training program for development of new artists, which has achieved impressive results; one-third of active Kabuki actors, for example, are graduates of the National Theater program, as are 85% of Kabuki musicians.
So how did the theater sink from the proud standard bearer for the Japanese arts to an ungainly public burden? For one thing, the theater has failed to keep up with the vast changes in lifestyles since its heyday. The early starting times — typically 11:00 for the matinee and 4:30 for the evening show — make it inaccessible to the working population, basically relying on housewives, the elderly and students to fill the seats. This is no longer a feasible strategy.
Moreover, the sheer length and rarity of the shows limit their appeal to existing fans, and the resulting lack of fresh blood has led to a shrinking audience base. Staging a show for empty houses is like the proverbial tree falling in the forest and contributes nothing to the theater’s mission to preserve and promote the arts. The theater does offer shorter shows for newcomers in what it calls “classrooms” (kyoshitsu) complete with lectures, giving it an academic tone that has failed to draw audiences in recent years. Its related Discover program in English for foreigners has had similarly dire results.
On top of that, the inconvenient location in Hanzomon has been a major negative, with only one small metro station in proximity and no significant dining or drinking options either pre- or post-theater. The venue has not been integrated with the surrounding area in any way — buses provided by the theater itself whisk customers after the show to Shinjuku and Shibuya — and thus has not contributed to the district’s development.
Kabuki continues to thrive in the commercial sector, of course, so the Grand Theater’s closure will hardly be noticed. However, the situation is acute for Bunraku, which has nowhere else to turn. The Bunraku performances were profitable for the theater and a godsend for the art, which is only financially viable thanks to its solid Tokyo fan base (partially offsetting the losses from its floundering Osaka home). Bunraku performances in the immediate future are set for Kita Senju, a corner of Tokyo far away from much of its audience, and shows beyond that will evidently drift from theater to theater. The prolonged lack of a permanent home could be a death blow to the 300-year-old art. The government’s failure to plan properly for the closure suggests it has little thought or understanding of the very arts it is supposed to be protecting.
One suggestion in the media has been the outright relocation of the theater. As it happens, the Tokyo government is pursuing an immense redevelopment project on the site of the former Tsukiji fish market, a city-owned waterfront area of over 196,000 meters representing the last prime location of its size in the nation’s capital. It is situated near both the city’s central business district and chic Ginza shopping area and stands as a popular tourist area in its own right.
Whereas the previous theater struggled to attract spectators to its out-of-the-way location, moving the National Theater to Tsukiji would bring the theater to the people, opening up an entirely new potential audience. Given the large number of existing theaters in the vicinity, the opening of a National Theater could create a Tokyo Broadway, extending the benefits beyond the theater itself to the broader community. The present theater could also continue to be used in the interim, thus allowing the arts to maintain their present schedule without a damaging multi-year gap. Among other proposals is that the theater be reconceived in Edo period style similar to London’s Globe Theatre, thus offering a more authentic experience that would distinguish it from existing venues like the Kabukiza.
Furthermore, the relocation to an area filled with shoppers, business people and foreign tourists would encourage the National Theater management to revise its basic goal from preserving the arts in amber to promoting them to new audiences, such as devising shorter programs of broader appeal to the general public.
As noted, the government’s obsession with building a multi-purpose hotel/shopping tower suggests that it has essentially given up on making the National Theater itself a viable, attractive and money-making facility. If the government is going to spend taxpayer money on such a theater in the first place, it needs to decide just why such a theater is needed and how to achieve that goal.
Recent missteps in public-sector projects, such as the misconceived National Stadium and struggling Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, are not encouraging. As it stands, the Tokyo government, though professing to be considering several proposals, has reportedly decided on a plan by developer Mitsui Fudosan Co. to build a replacement baseball stadium for the Tokyo Dome on this prime property. The myriad doubts over the plan — how a sports complex will integrate with swank Ginza next door, why a baseball stadium needs to be in such a central location, what happens in the off-season and during days and nights when no game is scheduled — are being hidden in a veil of secrecy, as the government refuses to disclose who has bid on the project, the contents of the bids, the standards for assessing the bids, and who is doing the assessing. Taxpayers have no voice in a project that they are paying for. The final decision is scheduled to be announced in March.
The travails of the National Theater have come under increasing scrutiny with a growing number of articles in major publications, including the Mainichi Shimbun, that are asking just what the government is up to. It is hoped that the government will avoid another costly scandal and consider not only the purpose of a national theater but the purpose of government itself. The nation is watching.
(Mainichi Daily, January 4, 2024)
sekenbanashi 