Kunio Kishida

Kunio Kishida

1890-1954. Playwright, director, critic, novelist. Born in Yotsuya, Tokyo, the eldest son of an officer in the Imperial Army, Kishida attended military preparatory school and went on to join the Japanese Military Academy, and was subsequently appointed sub-lieutenant and stationed as commissioned officer in Kurume. However, his love of literature got the better of him: despite his father’s opposition he left the army and entered the Faculty of Letters at Tokyo Imperial University. In 1920, he went to study abroad in Paris, where he encountered European modern drama—Ibsen, Chekhov, and Strindberg, among others. Taking lessons as an apprentice at the little playhouse founded by Jacques Copeau, the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, Kishida came into contact with the “Drama Purification Movement”, a theatrical movement that sought to cleanse the stage of all artificiality, flourishing in France at the time. On his return to Japan, he attracted considerable attention with the publication of plays such as Furui omocha (Old Toys, 1924), and Chiroru no aki (Autumn in Tirol, 1924). Opposed to proletarian drama, Kishida advocated literary value in plays: in 1937 he founded the Bungaku-za theatre company with Mantaro Kubota and Bunroku Shishi and others. Kishida argued that a script has to consist of words, beautiful words; and that the playwright should therefore write pieces that encourage the audience to listen to words much as they listen to a piece of music.