Shakespearean comedy and Japanese (wo)men's Shakespeare: A refraction for the twenty-first century

Abstract

Two adaptations of Shakespeare comedies between 2008 and 2010 by the Tokyo-based all-male Studio Life company coincided with the better-known all-male Shakespeares directed by Ninagawa Yukio (based just outside Tokyo) and a moment of rising awareness of gender issues in Japanese society. This article explores the role of Studio Life's (and Ninagawa's) translator Matsuoka Kazuko, arguing that just as the all-male format rendered the chauvinistic aspects of Shakespearean comedy more palatable to a mainly female audience, so too does Matsuoka's achievement as the first female translator of Shakespeare's complete plays reveal the possibility of a Japanese woman ‘becoming’ Shakespeare.