Masataka Matsuda
Masataka Matsuda
Born 1962 in Nagasaki Pref. Having begun activities in theater while a student at Ritsumeikan University, Matsuda formed the theater company Jiku Gekidan in Kyoto in 1990 and wrote and directed all of the company’s works until its dissolution in 1997. In his early period, Matsuda’s works focused on his native Nagasaki in a conversational drama style using the Nagasaki dialect. Employing everyday situations and a matter-of-fact style of dialogue, Matsuda is highly acclaimed for his ability to weave a living spell of drama that reveals the subconscious depths of human nature and karma. His work has won numerous awards, including the 1996 Kishida Kunio Drama Award for Umi to Higasa , which was later performed in 2003 by a Korean cast with a Korean director. This work became the first Japanese drama to win South Korea’s Dong-a Ilbo (East Asia Daily) Drama Award. In 2004 he founded the Marebito no Kai company in Kyoto to restart his activities as a theater director. Rejecting storytelling narrative in favor of motifs involving the collective memories and histories of religion, war and nation, he presents works that create theatrical worlds of the extraordinary that shine light on the contemporary world. In 2007, his play Cryptograph toured internationally to the cities of Cairo, Beijing and Shanghai.
