[0] Shakespeare helps to revitalize kyogen farce.

MACHIGAI NO KYOGEN

Setagaya Public Theater, Tokyo, April 22

Surely the success of Machigai no Kyogen (The Kyogen of Errors), a new kyogen piece based on Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, was easy to predict. Starring Nomura Mansai--kyogen's most promising young actor who also directed the performance--the play is the second Shakespearean kyogen piece Yasunari Takahashi has written since his script based on The Merry Wives of Windsor enjoyed an enthusiastic reception 10 years ago.

Machigai no Kyogen, with its moments of elaborate absurdity, is simply hilarious. While the setting for the play has been moved to Japan and the characters have been given Japanese names, Takahashi has stayed almost perfectly faithful to the original in terms of the plot and even the …