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The Sardine Seller’s Net of Love

The Sardine Seller’s Net of LoveKABUKI PLAY BY Yukio Mishima

World Premiere in English

  • Direction and Text Translation by Laurence Kominz
  • Preview April 15 at 7:30 p.m.
  • Runs April 16–May 1
  • Evening performances, 7:30 p.m. 
  • Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. 
  • Special Saturday matinee, 2 p.m., May 1

When Sarugenji, a sardine seller, falls in love with the most beautiful courtesan in Kyoto, he finds he has no energy to sell sardines and no money to spend time with the high-ranking courtesan. Sarugenji’s wealthy father helps his pathetic son become someone he is not. The story, set in the opulent splendor of Kyoto’s Pleasure Quarters, is full of plot twists, mistaken identity and romance. The comedy showcases classical Japanese kabuki, known for stylized drama and elaborate makeup.

DIRECTOR/TRANSLATOR: Laurence Kominz

Kominz is a professor of Japanese at Portland State University. He authored The Stars Who Created Kabuki: Their Lives, Loves and Legacy and Avatars of Vengeance: Japanese Drama and the Soga Literary Tradition, translated Mishima on Stage: The Black Lizard and Other Plays, and wrote many articles on kabuki, kyogen and Japanese dance. Kominz is a performer of nihon buyo and kyogen, and directs student kabuki and kyogen productions. He directed PSU’s Center for Japanese Studies and served as artistic director of summer Japanese performance festivals (Japan in Motion).

KABUKI PLAY BY Yukio Mishima

Kimitake Hiraoka was a Japanese author, poet and playwright, famous for his post–World War I writings. He began writing at age 12 against the wishes of his father, who ripped up the boy’s manuscripts. Writing secretly, he published his first novel at age 19. Fearing backlash from his schoolmates, his teachers coined his pen name, Yukio Mishima. His second novel made him a celebrity at the age of 24. Mishima’s novels, novellas, short stories, essays and Kabuki plays made him an international celebrity with a sizable following in Europe and America.

Autumn Garden

Autumn GardenBy Lillian Hellman

  • Directed by Susan Coromel
  • Runs November 20-22

Evening performances, 7:30 p.m. 
Saturday and Sunday matinee, 2 p.m., Nov. 21 and 22

Join us for a workshop production of Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellman. First produced in 1951, the play is Hellman's most mature and emotionally honest play, with a rich cast of imperfect yet noble characters struggling to find comfort amidst the simple tragedy of being human. In this introspective and rarely produced play, old friends gather in a summer home to rediscover connections, rekindle lost relationships and find peace, only to find they can't escape from the choices of their past.

Making theatre is often a challenging process and acting calls for an unusual degree of human vulnerability and brokenness, because plays are often about vulnerable and broken human beings. In this workshop production, advanced actors will work on rehearsal techniques using minimal set pieces, props and rehearsal costumes. We invite you to come and watch theatre at its very core -- the actor and the text.

Antigone

By Sophocles

AntigonTranslated by Robert Fagles

  • Directed by Jonathan Cole
  • Preview Oct. 8 at 7:30 p.m.
  • Runs Oct. 9–24
  • Evening performances, 7:30 p.m. 
  • Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. Special
  • Saturday matinee, 2 p.m., Oct. 24

Antigone’s uncle, the king of Thebes, has left Antigone’s dead brother as carrion for wild animals, unburied outside the city walls. When Antigone breaks the law to perform funereal rites for her brother, the kingdom starts to come apart at the seams. This gripping classic tragedy pits brother against brother, husband against wife, and a ruler against his people. The play explores the ritual beginnings of theatre as well as the depths of human emotion.

DIRECTOR Jonathan Cole

Cole is an associate professor at Willamette University who has worked throughout the country as a director, actor, fight choreographer and composer. He is a certified teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors and a director/choreographer with the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. Recent directing credits include Woyzeck, Shoebox Shakespeare, The Game of Love and Chance, Raised in Captivity, Cupid and Psyche, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Nicholas Nickleby, The Dreamer Examines His Pillow and Hot ‘n’ Throbbing.

PLAYWRIGHT Sophocles

Sophocles was an ancient Greek tragedian who had a significant influence on the development of drama, adding a third actor and developing characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights. For half a century Sophocles was the most-awarded playwright in dramatic competitions in Athens. Of 123 plays, only seven have survived intact.