This article was originally published in the Japan Times on October 20 2023.

In 2019, French theater director Ariane Mnouchkine traveled to Japan to receive the prestigious Kyoto Prize, awarded by the Inamori Foundation for “innovations to theatrical expression (that) have been globally influential.” In her lecture at the award ceremony, Mnouchkine recalled her first visit to Japan in 1963, a voyage that became hugely significant to her work.

She boarded a ship in the port of Marseille, France, which took her through the Suez Canal, stopping at Aden in Yemen, and Mumbai (then Bombay), India, before arriving at its destination in Yokohama.

Her first two months in Japan were frustratingly “lost in translation” since she spoke no Japanese and the majority of Japanese people she encountered spoke little English or French. However, with the aid of French journalist Marcel Giuglaris, who was fluent in Japanese, Mnouchkine was able to connect with Japanese culture in a more meaningful way. She watched a range of kabuki, noh and bunraku performances, all of which influenced her understanding of theater forms.

Mnouchkine’s latest production, “L’ile d’Or Kanemu-Jima,” draws on her experiences in Japan, both old and new, but most importantly, her time spent on Sado Island in 2019. (Her theater company, Theatre du Soleil, is set to perform “L’ile d’Or Kanemu-Jima” at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre from Oct. 20 to 26 and then at the Kyoto Rohm Theatre on Nov. 4 and 5.)

For theater fans, Sado Island is a sacred site because it was once home to noh master Zeami Motokiyo, who was exiled there in 1434. The island still has more than 30 noh stages. Sado Island is also home to the world renowned Kodo taiko drumming troupe. Moreover, like many of Japan’s smaller islands and rural communities in general, Sado Island has been struggling with the economic impacts of population decline; its local government, seated in Niigata Prefecture, has facilitated regeneration projects ranging from migration support for startup businesses to agriculture and cultural initiatives to drive tourism, including the annual Sado Galaxy Art Festival, which aims to “nurture the next generation of cultural leaders, promote culture, increase the number of visitors, and revitalize the region.”

Elements of all these aspects of Sado Island — noh, taiko, business investment and cultural regeneration projects — weave their way into “L’ile d’Or Kanemu-Jima.” The play revolves around Cornelia, an elderly woman on her sickbed, who dreams of a fictional Japanese island called “Kanemu-jima” (Golden Dream Island). Thanks to the cast’s real-time set building sequences, the play moves quickly between time frames and locales, including a hospital bedroom, an outdoor onsen (hot spring), a port terminal and a noh stage.

From Cornelia’s bedroom, the action moves to the island, where the local mayor’s political party is trying to “regenerate” economic activities with an international theater festival. The motley list of acts includes an Israeli-Palestinian duet performing a history of dividing walls, two naked “eco-warrior” Frenchmen, a revolutionary group from Hong Kong and an itinerant Japanese storytelling troupe. Meanwhile, opponents of the mayor plot the development of a casino resort, and a battle of wills — comically mediated by a local radio station — drives a dream-like clash of characters and cultures into a melting pot of real-world political problems, theater styles and dark humor.

Journeys of large-scale proportion are one of the recurring themes in Theatre du Soleil’s works. “Tambours sur la Digue,” for example, which is the first production that Mnouchkine brought to Japan in 2001 and was staged at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, tells the story of class division in the wake of a great flood in China. “Le Dernier Caravanserail,” in 2003, brings together stories of refugees who Mnouchkine and her team interviewed in holding camps in France, Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand. In 2010, the company staged “Les Naufrages du Fol Espoir (Aurores),” based on a novel by 19th-century French author Jules Verne and written, like many of the company’s works, by Mnouckine’s long-term collaborator, Helene Cixous. The story follows an eclectic group of passengers on a perilous voyage from Cardiff, Wales, to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Set during the buildup to World War I, this rag-tag cargo of souls voice fears of Europe’s dark hour as they struggle for life in raging seas.

Mnouchkine’s work is often called “intercultural theater,” which is an umbrella term used to describe theater productions since the 1960s that mix traditions and forms from different source cultures. Her productions fuse together a broad range of traditions from West to East, including Japanese, Indian and Balinese theater forms, but also mask work from the Italian commedia dell’arte street theater tradition that Mnouchkine acquired through French theater pioneers Jacques Copeau and Jacques Lecoq.

Intercultural theater has been criticized in the past for its Western-centered misreading and appropriation of source cultures. In “L’ile d’Or Kanemu-Jima,” the mixed roots cast depict Japanese cultural and social conventions while delivering many of their lines in a “Japanized” form of French. On the surface, this could be read as shallow mimicry, or it could be read as challenging assumptions of how the West imagines Japan.

In any case, the production is empowered by Theatre du Soleil’s large, close-knit cast, highly adept at shifting between group scenes and moments of individual comedic expression. Since its inception, the company has operated on a democratic basis, with equal pay, shared tasks and shared input on major decisions affecting the direction of the company.

“L’ile d’Or Kanemu-Jima” is a lively summation of many of the themes that Mnouchkine and her company of actors, writer Cixous and her long-term musical director and collaborator Jean-Jacques Lemetre have been developing since 1964. Newcomers to Theatre du Soleil will likely find this piece to be an intense experience, while seasoned fans will feel very much at home.