Journal Article

“Let’s Becquerel!” The Political Function of Voice in Fukushima Musical Theater

WIESINGER, Justine

2023

Overview

The voice emerged as a repeated motif in the literature of the aftermath of the 2011 disasters in Japan. Many stage works responding to the disasters employed voice and song, especially the works of Fukushima-based theater troupe Unit Rabbits. This article examines why and how a Fukushima-based troupe might use the voice to do the political and social work of staking traumatic claims in the aftermath of disaster. Especially of interest are the ways in which multiple voices are used at once, referred to as “multi-vocality.” Using multiple voices in Are kara no rakki airando (Lucky Island in the Aftermath), playwright Sato Shigenori highlights desires for unity, individual variation, the community-making possibilities of dialect and the voice, and the introduction of harmony as viewpoints pluralize. Only allowing people with connections to Fukushima to sing, Sato inverts the real-life situation in which a totalizing national voice is typically foregrounded while regional voices recede.

• Publisher: International Research Centre for Japanese Studies, National Institute for the Humanities