Minoru Betsuyaku

At 87 years old, Minoru Betsuyaku physical status not available right now. We will update Minoru Betsuyaku's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Before being involved in Waseda Little Theatre Company, Betsuyaku dropped out of college to be involved in a protest movement in 1961. This protest movement focused on stopping the establishment of a military base in the island, Niigima. These were political demonstrations against the renewal of the United States-Japan Security Treaty. When he returned from this hiatus, Suzuki and his friends wanted to do a separate play from their drama club, Jiyu Butai, at the Waseda festival. So Betsuyaku wrote his first play, A and B and a Certain Women, for them in 1961.

His first play, A and B and a Certain Women, is about a man B who felt inferior to man A. Man B was being continuously derided by man A that man B kills man A. It contains a lot of characteristics of “silence” and “irresolvable conflict”.

The main influence on him at that time was films. His play, A and B and a Certain Women, was inspired by the film called An Eye for an Eye in 1957, which had a similar plot with unstoppable conflict. However, that was not the only influence. The main influence was from Beckett. Samuel Beckett came around when the theater was getting the end of the “realism” plays. Realism plays are plays that have three sided walls and a fourth wall which is only present to the actors. It would usually have many props and background objects to make the play realistic. However, Betsuyaku’s work was like Beckett’s work in the sense that it had no walls and it had very little background objects. For example, some of the plays would only have a telephone pole just like a lone tree in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Betsuyaku called this the “Beckett’s space”. Also, a realism play would have complex characters with names to make the play very realistic. However, Betsuyaku’s and Beckett’s plays had simple characters with no names. This style of play was unique and was able to be open to many interpretations. For example, the character’s names were identified as man A and man B instead of Paul or John.

Source

• 1968 – 13th “New Theatre” Kishida Kunio Drama Award (“The Little Match Girl” and “A Scene With A Red Bird”)
• 1971 – Kinokuniya Theater Award (“A Town and a Blimp” and “Alice in Wonderland”)
• 1972 – “New Artist” Award of the Ministry of Education’s Selected Artists Encouragement Awards (“The Revolt of the Breeze Tribe”)
• 1987 – Yomiuri Literature Award (“The Story of the Two Knights Traveling Around the Country” and other plays)
• 1988 – Minister of Education Award for the Arts (“Giovanni’s Journey to His Father”)
• 1997 – Cultural Award of Hyogo Prefecture
• 1998 – Special Award of the 39th Mainichi Art Award
• 2007 – Kinokuniya Theater Award (“Godot Has Come” and “If a Dog Turns to the West, Its Tail Faces the East”)
• 2008 – 11th Tsuruya Nanboku Play Award and the Asahi Award (“Godot Has Come”)