Director of "Hebi ni Piasu" stages Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" in London

by Chris MaGee

Yukio Ninagawa (above right) has been a fixture on the theatre scene for years bringing his own hybrid of traditional Japanese kabuki and noh drama and the canon of Western plays by Shakespeare and Sophocles to audiences in Japan and around the world. He's even worked with some of the Japanese movie industry's brightest stars. For his 2004 production of "Romeo and Juliet" he cast "Death Note's" Tatsuya Fujiwara and "Returner's" Ann Suzuki as the doomed young lovers, but he really didn't come to the attention of Japanese film fans until this year when he made his feature film directorial debut with his adaptation of Hitomi Kanehara's novel "Hebi ni Piasu (Snakes and Earrings)".

Now according to The Japan Times Online Ninagawa is returning to his day job as theatrical producer by bringing his Shakespeare-meets-kabuki production of "Twelfth Night" to London. The production had already been mounted in Japan in 2005 and 2007, but to mark 150 years of relations between England and Japan Ninagawa's Japanese language take on the famed comedy will hit the London stage in March.

In an interview with Times Ninagawa, who has cast the father and son kabuki duo of Onoe Kikugoro and Onoe Kikunosuke (above left) in the lead roles, explained his traditional Japanese take on the play. "If I likened this 'Twelfth Night' to a plate of sashimi," he explained, "the raw fish would be the young actors in the main roles, such as Kikunosuke, and for example, Kikugoro would be the wasabi, the added, extra-special taste. In the end, I think I am just the yellow, plastic flower decoration."