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Oriza Hirata

ひらた オリザ

Hirata Oriza

Pen Names: Oriza Hirata（Used as legal name and professional name）

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1962-11-08 （Komaba, Meguro, Tokyo, Japan）
Nationality
Japan
Languages
Japanese
Residence History
Komaba, Meguro, Tokyo, Japan → Seoul, South Korea (exchange at Yonsei University)

Career

Occupations
playwright, theatre director, novelist, theatre company artistic director, academic, screenwriter
Active Years
1981-
Affiliations
Seinendan (Youth Theatre Company), Komaba Agora Theatre, Tokyo University of the Arts, Art Innovation Center (Specially Appointed Professor), Japan Playwrights Association (Director)
Memberships
Japan Playwrights Association, Science Council of Japan (member)
Influenced By
Yasujiro Ozu
Influenced
Hidetomo Iwai, Riki Okada, Shiro Maeda, Shu Matsui, Katsuyuki Motohiro

Education

International Christian University
College of Liberal Arts, Department of Humanities / Department of Humanities
Period: 1982–1986
Year of Graduation: 1986
Country: Japan
Yonsei University (exchange)
Period: 1984 (1 year, exchange)
Country: South Korea
Publicly funded exchange scholarship from International Education Foundation

Awards

Kishida Kunio Drama Award
1995
Work: Tokyo Note
Organization: Kishida Kunio Drama Award Selection Committee
Result: winner
Yomiuri Theatre Awards (Outstanding Director Award)
1998
Work: Cape of the Moon
Category: 優秀演出家賞
Organization: Yomiuri Shimbun
Result: winner
Yomiuri Theatre Awards (Outstanding Production Award)
2002
Work: The Repeated Attacks on Ueno Zoo
Category: 優秀作品賞
Organization: Yomiuri Shimbun
Result: winner
Montblanc International Culture Prize
2006
Organization: Montblanc International Culture Prize Committee
Result: recipient
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Chevalier
2011
Organization: French Ministry of Culture
Result: chevalier
Tsuruya Namboku Drama Award
2019
Work: A History of the Rise and Fall of Japanese Literature
Organization: Tsuruya Namboku Drama Award Selection Committee
Result: winner
Mainichi Film Awards (TSUTAYA Film Fan Award, Japanese Film category)
2016
Work: The Curtain Rises (film)
Organization: Mainichi Shimbun
Result: recipient

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Tokyo Note

1995 play 207 pages

A representative play exemplifying Hirata's 'quiet theatre' using everyday speech. Multiple characters engage in calmly unfolding conversations that reveal the dramatic quality of ordinary existence.

everyday lifecommunicationdialogue

The Curtain Rises

2012 novel (adapted to film)

A youth story about a high school drama club. The novel was adapted into a film in 2015 and brought wider public attention to Hirata's literary work.

youththeatrecoming of age
Adaptations
  • [film] The Curtain Rises / 本広克行 (2015)

Seoul Citizens (trilogy)

1989 play

A series of plays informed by Hirata's stay in Korea, dealing with Japan–Korea exchange and gaps in language and culture.

international exchangecultural differenceslanguage

A History of the Rise and Fall of Japanese Literature

2019 play

A large-scale play themed around Japanese literature. Winner of the 22nd Tsuruya Namboku Drama Award.

literary historyculturecritique

Bibliography

  • A Book Recording the Adventures of a Sixteen-Year-Old Oriza (originally with a very long title)
  • Tokyo Note (1995)
  • Transfer Student (1995)
  • The Curtain Rises (2012)
  • An Introduction to Theatre (1998)

Adaptations

  • The Curtain Rises — film adaptation (2015, dir. Katsuyuki Motohiro)
  • Documentaries 'Engeki 1' and 'Engeki 2' by Kazuhiro Soda (2012)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
quiet theatre based on modern colloquial theatre theorynaturalistic dialogue using everyday speechmeticulously timed movement emphasizing stillness
Recurring Motifs
everyday conversationsimultaneous overlapping dialoguesstillness and the passage of uneventful time

Legacy

A key theorist and practitioner in contemporary Japanese theatre. Proponent of modern colloquial theatre theory, he significantly influenced small-scale theatre since the 1990s and is active as an educator and cultural policy actor.

Museums

  • Aomori Museum of Art (Director) Aomori City, Aomori Prefecture, Japan

Academic Societies

  • Japan Playwrights Association
  • Science Council of Japan (member / participation)

In Popular Culture

  • Broader public recognition after the film adaptation of the novel 'The Curtain Rises'

Quotes

  • Human everyday life is not a continuous series of dramatic events but is largely occupied by quiet, uneventful time; yet the very existence of people is sufficiently dramatic.
    Source: Various writings on modern colloquial theatre (summary) (1998)

Trivia

  • At age 16 he undertook a round-the-world bicycle trip and published a travelogue about it.
  • The 2015 film adaptation of 'The Curtain Rises' increased his notoriety as a novelist.
  • He announced the birth of his first child at the age of 55.