Shuji Terayama’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

​Shuji Terayama’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

 Japan Society


CONTEMPORARY THEATER | NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Wednesday, January 15 at 7:30 pm—Followed by an opening night reception
Thursday, January 16 at 7:30 pm—Followed by an artist Q&A
Friday, January 17 at 7:30 pm—Preceded by a pre-performance lecture
Saturday, January 18 at 7:30 pm

“…A combination of fashion, magic, evil and eroticism…” – Shuji Terayama

Playbill (PDF) →
Bluebeard is given a Harajuku makeover in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, a wild burlesque-like subversion of the French gothic horror legend. Shuji Terayama, father of Japan’s angura (underground) theater movement in the 1960s and ’70s, was repeatedly drawn to the story of Bluebeard’s wives and the locked castle door, culminating in this mind-bending game of cat-and-mouse that questions the very nature of theater itself. Saturated with dark magic tricks, fiddlers and accordion players, aerial dance and more, Project NYX, led by Kanna Mizushima, brings a cross-dressing cast of nearly 30 members to Japan Society for a production directed by illustrious Korean-Japanese experimental theater director Kim Sujin. Find out who escapes the castle in this macabre, magic-infused Lolita fashion spectacle.

On Friday, January 17, a pre-performance lecture on Shuji Terayama led by University of California, Los Angeles Professor Emerita of Theatre Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei will begin at 6:30 pm. All ticketholders for Duke Bluebeard’s Castle are welcome to attend this one-night-only pre-performance event with a valid ticket as space allows.

Performed in Japanese with English supertitles.