Awakening The Deeply Asleep:A Study Of Suzuki Tadashi’s Dramatic Perception Dynamics

Tadashi Suzuki is one of the greatest contemporary dramatists,a pioneer theorist and theater director.As the leader of the "Japanese Small Theater Movement",he established the Japanese Toga Theater Company,and served as its director.He believes that the progress of social science and technology directly leads to the degradation of human body perception,but the actor’s body,as the main body of the performance,should have a complete body perception.Therefore,he created the "Suzuki Method" for the purpose of training the actor’s body.This method combines the body of traditional Japanese opera and Kabuki,pays attention to the stability of the actor’s breathing and lower body,can stimulate the actor’s internal energy,and emphasizes that the actor’s internal energy and body are the main body of the performance,so it is called "Oriental Grotowski".As a director,Suzuki transformed the abandoned historic village houses(gassho zukuri)Japanese residence into a theater.The pure wooden house structure,far away from the modern prosperous city,is the best choice for him.Therefore,he founded the "Toga Sanbo" theater,and formed his own unique perception of the theater space in the process of transformation.This dissertation looks into Suzuki ’s perception in drama to explore his performance theory.First,it studies his drama activities during different time periods,attempting to trace and analyze his drama activities in the context of Japanese social thoughts.Based on his collaborating dramatists during different time periods,it will analyze the social and personal causes for his evolving theories.Secondly,it attempts to clarify the concept of perception,discusses the relationship between perception and theatrical performance,and divides perception into perception subject(i.e.sensory perception)and perception object(i.e.spatial perception).Following this model,through the research of Tadashi Suzuki’s perception theory,it reveals the two perspectives of "view of body" and "view of space" in his dramatic performances.Suzuki ’s sensory perception mainly refers to the perception of the external world by the body’s senses.Tadashi Suzuki’s sensory perception is largely reflected in his application of "animal energy" theory to drama.It helps recover the complete human body perception through the context of the theater.In addition,it combines with traditional Japanese drama to create a set of training methods for the actors’ bodies,known as the "Suzuki Method".The training methods pay more attention to the movement of the feet,focusing on the strength of the lower body and evoking the body’s perception in every movement that touches the ground.It therefore also called "foot grammar".Suzuki’s spatial perception deals with physical space and psychological space.Since drama performance must occur in a specific physical space,the actor’s spatial perception is reflected in the spatial relationship between the body and the theater.Guided by the theory of "animal energy",Suzuki has his own unique view on theater space.He believes that the theater should be a pure place to demonstrate the actor’s body,and that all “non-animal energy” should be minimized.His "Toga Sanbo" theater reveals this feature.In addition,Tadashi Suzuki also has a unique insight into the mental space perception of actors,which is embodied in his use of the concepts of "pre-expressiveness" and "fictional body" in performances.The dissertation provides a case analysis of Suzuki ’s three dramas,including “King Lear”,an adaptation of Shakespeare ’s tragedy,“Troy Woman”,a modified version of the ancient Greek Euripides tragedy,and "Big Nose Love Saint",,adapted from the tragedy of the same name by French dramatist Edmund Rosen.They are all Western scripts,but Tadashi Suzuki did not put the original work on the stage intact.After adapting them through various methods such as "collage" and "framing",he asked the actors to show these dramas with Japanese "body".It analyzes the comprehensive application of Suzuki Tadashi’s perception in the dramatic works through the combing of the creative trajectory of each drama and the comparative study of the adaptation of the script.It concludes with an examination of Tadashi Suzuki’s adaptation and innovation in drama theory.It claims that his drama theory is influenced by both traditional drama and Western philosophy,including the inheritance of Japanese classical drama and enhancement and deviation of the new Japanese performance system dominated by Stanislavsky.In order to compressively summarize Tadashi Suzuki’s adaptation and innovation,it explores the influence of Merleau Ponti’s phenomenology and Sartre’s existentialism on Tadashi Suzuki’s drama,seeking to find a philosophical base for his drama theory.This paper takes the theory of perception in drama performance as the breakthrough point to discuss and discuss the drama theory of Tadashi Suzuki,which fills in the lack of domestic research on Tadashi Suzuki ’s drama and promotes the exploration of theoretical research and practice of contemporary avant-garde and experimental drama.Suzuki’s application of the mixture of eastern and Western cultures in modern drama provides a reference for the development of drama in China.In addition,it also enlightens the performance practice teaching in domestic colleges and universities,trying to further supplement the lack of physical training in the domestic practice teaching.