The Gull

By (author): Daphne Marlatt

Preface by: Richard Emmert

Translated by: Toyoshi Yoshihara

Winner of the prestigious 2008 Uchimura Naoya Prize, The Gull is the first Canadian play staged in the ancient, ritualized tradition of Japanese Noh. Produced by Vancouver’s Pangaea Arts, and written by award-winning poet and novelist Daphne Marlatt, the play is set in 1950: wartime restrictions on interned Japanese Canadians have finally been lifted, allowing them to return to the coast. It is a dramatization of the historical link between the fishing town of Steveston, home to many of these first, second and third generation Japanese Canadians, and Mio, the coastal village in Wakayama from which many of their ancestors originally emigrated.

Inspired by a ghost story a Nisei fisherman had told during Marlatt’s work on the history of Steveston in the 1970s, the ghost in the play is seen by one of the two fishermen as the spirit of his mother who had perished in the internment camps, and as a gull by the other. The iconic centre of the play, the gull is common to Japan and North America. Connected to a fishing superstition that if you see a seagull splashing in the waves it means a storm is coming, it also takes full advantage of the dense intertextuality and multiple meanings of the poetic language of classical Noh theatre. To “be gulled” is to “be taken in,” a key to the play’s storyline of a people deluded that their right to citizenship by birth would protect them, their homes and their families from the State.

An international collaboration, The Gull’s premiere featured: Noh master Akira Matsui, declared an Important Intangible Cultural Asset by Japan in 1998, as the main actor; American Noh expert Richard Emmert who wrote the music; two masks created by Wakayama artist Hakuzan Kubo; and a troupe of professional Noh musicians from Japan.

AUTHOR

Daphne Marlatt

Daphne Marlatt was born in Melbourne, Australia and spent her formative years in Penang, Malaysia. She immigrated to Canada with her family in 1951. Daphne Marlatt’s work includes numerous published books including<:> Salvage, Ana Historic, Touch to my Tongue and Steveston. Her work has appeared in over twenty anthologies and she is a frequent contributor of articles to literary publications.


AUTHOR

Toyoshi Yoshihara

Toyoshi Yoshihara is an award-winning translator who has worked tirelessly to introduce English-language works of drama to Japanese audiences. A Canadian industrialist, he has translated over seventy Canadian plays into Japanese; heads the Maple Leaf Theatre in Japan; and is an honorary lifetime member of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research.

AUTHOR

Richard Emmert

Richard Emmert is the American founder and Artistic Director of Theatre Nohgaku, based in Tokyo and Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania; Director of its Noh Training Project; and Professor of Asian Theater and Music at Musashino University, Tokyo. Emmert wrote the music for Daphne Marlatt’s The Gull.

Reviews

“A masterpiece.” — International Theatre Institute, UNESCO

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Winner of the prestigious 2008 Uchimura Naoya Prize, The Gull is the first Canadian play staged in the ancient, ritualized tradition of Japanese Noh. Produced by Vancouver’s Pangaea Arts, and written by award-winning poet and novelist Daphne Marlatt, the play is set in 1950: wartime restrictions on interned Japanese Canadians have finally been lifted, allowing them to return to the coast. It is a dramatization of the historical link between the fishing town of Steveston, home to many of these first, second and third generation Japanese Canadians, and Mio, the coastal village in Wakayama from which many of their ancestors originally emigrated.

Inspired by a ghost story a Nisei fisherman had told during Marlatt’s work on the history of Steveston in the 1970s, the ghost in the play is seen by one of the two fishermen as the spirit of his mother who had perished in the internment camps, and as a gull by the other. The iconic centre of the play, the gull is common to Japan and North America. Connected to a fishing superstition that if you see a seagull splashing in the waves it means a storm is coming, it also takes full advantage of the dense intertextuality and multiple meanings of the poetic language of classical Noh theatre. To “be gulled” is to “be taken in,” a key to the play’s storyline of a people deluded that their right to citizenship by birth would protect them, their homes and their families from the State.

An international collaboration, The Gull’s premiere featured: Noh master Akira Matsui, declared an Important Intangible Cultural Asset by Japan in 1998, as the main actor; American Noh expert Richard Emmert who wrote the music; two masks created by Wakayama artist Hakuzan Kubo; and a troupe of professional Noh musicians from Japan.

Reader Reviews

Details

Dimensions:

128 Pages
7.5in * 191mm * 5in * 127mm * 0.3125in8mm
142gr
5.125oz

Published:

December 01, 2009

City of Publication:

Vancouver

Country of Publication:

CA

Publisher:

Talonbooks

ISBN:

9780889226166

Book Subjects:

DRAMA / Canadian

Featured In:

All Books

Language:

eng

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