''Rashomon'' is the name of several different stage productions, all ultimately derived from works by

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa , art name , was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story", and Japan's premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. He took his own life at the age ...

Source material

's two short stories "

Rashomon is a 1950 Japanese ''jidaigeki'' film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay he co-wrote with Shinobu Hashimoto. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura, it follows various people who describe how a ...

" (1915), also known as "The Rashomon Gate", and " In a Grove" (1922), also known as "The Cedar Grove", were famously fused and adapted as the basis for

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker who List of works by Akira Kurosawa, directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the History of film, history of cinema ...

's 1950 award-winning film ''

'', screenplay by Kurosawa and frequent collaborator Shinobu Hashimoto. In 1951 the film won an honorary International Academy Award, following the success of the film in winning a

Golden Lion The Golden Lion () is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguished prizes. In 1970, a ...

award at the

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

in the same year. The Kurosawa and Hashimoto screenplay deviates from Akutagawa's original stories in a number of ways, most notably by allowing a note of hope to triumph over Akutagawa's dark pessimism. Neither Akutagawa's story nor any of the plays based on it share anything with the popular traditional Rashōmon (Noh play) (c.1420) about a man who climbs the

rajōmon , also called , was the gate built at the southern end of the monumental Suzaku Avenue in the ancient Japanese cities of Heijō-kyō (Nara) and Heian-kyō (Kyoto), in accordance with the Chinese grid-patterned city layout. At the other far nort ...

gate to see if a demon is on top of it.

Stage versions

Fay and Michael Kanin

This 1959 Broadway adaptation by Fay and Michael Kanin ran for six months (January–June) at the Music Box Theatre, New York, starring

Rod Steiger Rodney Stephen Steiger ( ; April 14, 1925 – July 9, 2002) was an American actor, noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. Ranked as "one of Hollywood's most charismatic and dynamic stars", he is closely associ ...

and

Claire Bloom Patricia Claire Bloom (born 15 February 1931) is an English actress. She is known for leading roles on stage and screen and has received two BAFTA Awards and a Drama Desk Award as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award, a Grammy Award an ...

, who married soon after the play's run ended. The Kanins' production was nominated for three Tony awards. The Kanins' somewhat sentimental script sticks closely to the film, including elements added by Kurosawa that do not appear in Akutagawa's original short stories. The Kanins later went on to write the film screenplay for the Western ''

The Outrage ''The Outrage'' is a 1964 American Western film directed by Martin Ritt and starring Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson and William Shatner. It is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1950 Japanese film '' Rashomon'', ba ...

'', which also credits Kurosawa and Akutagawa (but not Hashimoto). ''The Outrage'' was one of several Westerns based on Kurosawa's films, most notably

John Sturges John Eliot Sturges (; January 3, 1910 – August 18, 1992) was an American film director. His films include '' Bad Day at Black Rock'' (1955), '' Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'' (1957), ''The Magnificent Seven'' (1960), '' The Great Escape'' (19 ...

' ''

The Magnificent Seven ''The Magnificent Seven'' is a 1960 American Western film directed by John Sturges. The screenplay, credited to William Roberts, is a remake – in an Old West-style – of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 Japanese film '' Seven Samurai'' (itself init ...

'', adapted from Kurosawa's historical epic ''

Seven Samurai is a 1954 Japanese epic samurai action film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay co-written with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Taking place in 1586 in the Sengoku period of Japanese history, it follows the story of a villag ...

'' (1954), and

Sergio Leone Sergio Leone ( ; ; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian filmmaker, credited as the pioneer of the spaghetti Western genre. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. Leone's film-making style ...

's ground-breaking "

Spaghetti Western The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

" ''

A Fistful of Dollars ''A Fistful of Dollars'' (, (''For a Fistful of Dollars'')) is a 1964 spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role, alongside Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Si ...

'' (1964). The Kanins' script was also staged on U.S. television as a "Play of the Week" (1960). East West Players (EWP) presented the first intimate staging of the Kanins' script, as their inaugural production in 1966. The show was revived two more times by EWP before retiring (once during their 5th season in 1970, and once in their 20th season in 1986). More modern adaptations of ''Rashomon'' have gone back to Akutagawa's original stories.

Ivor Benjamin

Ivor Benjamin's 1988 adaptation is from original translations by Jane Guaschi, then a language student at Sheffield University, U.K., and stays closer to the bleaker viewpoint of Akutagawa than the Kanins' version. This adaptation received its international premiere by torytellers Theatre Company(no longer in operation), Ireland, 2005, for which the tour was nominated for two ESB/Irish Times 2005 Theatre Awards: Liam Halligan for Best Director and Chisato Yoshimi for Best Costume Design. The script has also been performed at Jackson's Lane Theatre, London, UK (1988), the University of the Philippines (2000), in Ashland, Oregon, USA (2005) and by Black Sheep Theatre Company,

Rochester, New York Rochester is a city in and the county seat, seat of government of Monroe County, New York, United States. It is the List of municipalities in New York, fourth-most populous city and 10th most-populated municipality in New York, with a populati ...

, US (2009).

Other adaptations

''Rashomon'' – adaptation by Meena Natarajan and Luu Pham for Pangea World Theater (2000). ''Rashomon'' – adaptation by Philippe Cherbonnier (after Akutagawa), directed by Kwong Loke, Kumiko Mendl and David K.S. Tse for Yellow Earth Theatre Company, London UK and tour, (2001). ''Rashomon'' – a 1996 English language opera by London-based Argentine composer Alejandro Viñao, with libretto by Craig Raine.Poetry Wales – Volume 32 – Page 48 Welsh Arts Council – 1996 "With Rashomon, the composer Alejandro Vinao phoned me up and asked if I was interested in doing an opera and I said, "Let's talk about this". Because it was wonderful doing an opera at Glyndebourne, but it took a tremendous amount of ..."

References

External links

IMDb - ''Rashomon'' - Akira Kurosawa
and
Play of the Week

IBDB - ''Rashomon'' - Fay & Michael Kanin

Projecttartscentre.ie

Yellow Earth adaptation
{{In a Grove Japanese plays Asian-American theatre 1959 plays Rashōmon 1988 plays Japan in non-Japanese culture