Profile

NINAGAWA, Yukio
Born in 1935, the director Yukio Ninagawa began his career by joining the theater company Seihai in 1955. He was active as an actor until 1967 when he formed the company Gendaijin Gekijo. The following year he made his directing debut with the play Shinjo Afururu Keihakusa by Kunio Shimizu. In 1972 he founded the theater company Sakura-sha, which proceeded to lead the small-theater movement of the 1960s and 70s by presenting the socially controversial plays of Shimizu. In 1974 he entered the commercial theater world with a production of Romeo and Juliet. After that he produced a succession of theatrical hits characterized by dynamic group performance and stage spaces of great visual richness that came to be known as the “Ninagawa aesthetic.” After taking a production of the Greek tragedy Medea to Greece in 1983, he has mounted a large number of overseas productions. Recent years have been marked by an especially large number of productions in Britain, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1996, Shintokumaru in 1997, Hamlet in 1998 and a long-running production of King Lear in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1999 into 2000. These activities led to Ninagawa being presented a CBE of the 3rd order by the British government in 2002. His awards in the theater world have also been numerous. Presently he is the Dean of the Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music. Representative works as a director include Chikamatsu Shinju Monogatari (Chikamatsu Suicide Stories), NINAGAWA Macbeth, Hamlet, Shintokumaru, Greeks, Pericles, Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus.

http://www.my-pro.co.jp/ninagawa/

Profile

Onoe Kikunosuke V
Onoe Kikunosuke was born the eldest son of Onoe Kikugoro VII in 1977. He received the stage name Onoe Ushinosuke VI at the age of five, when he made his first appearance at the Kabuki-za Theatre in Tokyo. In 1996 he assumed the stage name of Onoe Kikunosuke V when he appeared in the role of Benten-kozo in the play Shiranami gonin otoko at the Kabuki-za Theatre. As one of the most distinguished young actors in the world of Kabuki in whose hand the future of the genre lies, he has gained a reputation especially for his performances in onnagata female roles such as Agemaki in Sukeroku and Masaoka in Meiboku sendai hagi. In recent years he has taken on the challenge of leading beau-part roles.
In the field of contemporary drama he appeared in 2000 in the role of Orestes in Yukio Ninagawa’s production of The Greeks. It was this encounter that led him to cooperating with Ninagawa once again on this production of Twelfth Night.