Japanese Political Theatre in Context

Extract

The political character of Theatre Center 68/71, a Japanese troupe based in Tokyo, is best understood as part of the historical space within which it operates. This space may be delineated in terms of three coordinates: the murderous disunity of the Japanese New Left, the popular evasion of historical accountability facilitated by the “split-level” nature of Japanese historical consciousness, and the need to enunciate revolution as a redemption of history, as a plausible goal in the Japanese intellectual and linguistic context.

At approximately six o'clock on the morning of March 14, a male caller identifying himself only as a member of the Revolutionary Marxist League (Kakumaru) telephoned the Police Press Club in Tokyo. “This morning at 3:22 we torpedoed Chūkaku's Honda at an apartment in Higashi Kawaguchi. This is in repayment for an attack on our comrade Namba Tsuyoshi and is intended to show what happens to people like Chūkaku, who become the willing pawns of bourgeois power.”