Analysis Of Macbeth By Yukio Ninagawa

One of the most known of Shakespeare’s plays that Yukio Ninagawa directed in Japan was Macbeth also known as Ninagawa Macbeth. He used the technique of Kabuki. Ninagawa Macbeth was first played in Japan in 1980, later was performed at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1985 and at the National Theater in London from 1987 and ahead. Ninagawa Macbeth was played many ages after the prototype Macbeth was played and therefore many things have changed like the costumes, and the way that people used to live. Ninagawa decided set the play to a 16th century samurai world where traditional Japanese people fight, instead of 11th century’s Scotland that there have been lords. According to translation strategies what Ninagawa did was domestication …show more content…
These differences are director’s decision in order to make the play more intimate to Japanese audience. For instance, in the beginning of the play, the bell of a Buddhist altar tolled and two old ladies opened the doors of a huge family place. By this way, Ninagawa Macbeth is a play within another play. This is something that reminds the audience of a tradition of the Japanese culture and it is an adding of director that did not exist in the original play. Ninagawa wrote in his book, Thousand Knives, Thousand Eyes, “When I opened the doors of the household shrine at home and offered sticks of incense, I remembered my dead father and brother, and could communicate with them. Then I thought that Macbeth was one of my ancestors.” (Ninagawa, 104-107) There is a Japanese legend that says that under a cherry tree there were many death people and Ninagawa decided the murder of Banquo to take place under cherry petals that there were on stage. All these things were director’s decisions that made the play really different from the original play. Shakespeare used only a few things on stage and this scenery is totally different from Shakespeare’s production. Yukio Ninagawa has may tried to give a different version of Macbeth, closer to the Japanese culture. He might wanted to use Japanese culture in order to show something different and not that a production that was already played. Shakespeare used everyday life images that were very down to earth even if he talked about philosophical question and this is something that Ninagawa did too as he used images of Japanese culture and tradition that people are used to them in order to pass the message of Macbeth. As Delabastita states in his text “Translation” there are reasons behind translations and whatever anyone does is a motivation. Therefore, Yukio Ninagawa had his reasons for doing the decisions