RI KORAN

RI KORAN. By Asari Keita. Created and performed by Shiki Theatre Company. Shiki Theatre, Tokyo. 8-29 September 2013.

Ri Koran, the major wartime (1931-45) play by Asari Keita, director and impresario of the Shiki Theatre Company, has enjoyed a continuous run in Shiki's member theatres across Japan and overseas since its 1991 Tokyo premiere. An adaptation of the autobiography Ri Koran: watashi no hansei (Ri Koran: Half my life), this musical dramatizes the life of actress and singer Ri Koran (also known as Yamaguchi Yoshiko [1920-]). Attending the work twenty years after its first performance, I wondered how collective memoirs depicting realism would be represented onstage.

Ri's compelling story of changing identities under turbulent historical conditions has been adapted into television dramas and books. Born in Manchuria to Japanese parents, she adopted her Chinese stage name Ri Koran (Li Xianglan in Mandarin) for her debut in the Manchuria Film Association's 1938 film Honeymoon Express. From the late 1930s to the mid-'40s, she attained the highest celebrity status, becoming a popular film and theatre icon in both Japan and China. Through her films based in Manchuria and Tokyo, Ri portrayed a "good Chinese" who advocated Japan leading Asia toward independence from Western imperialism. Although her career suffered a minor setback after her Japanese nationality came to light following World War II, she continued to make films and appeared on television shows throughout the 1950s and '60s, eventually transitioning to politics in the '70s.

As an original Japanese theatrical creation, Ri Koran marks a major thematic departure from previous stagings of American scripts...