Abstract

Through a close reading of two post-Fukushima plays by Setoyama Misaki, this article examines the potential of theatre to shape cultural memory and raise critical awareness. The playwright-director is known for exploring contentious issues in Japanese society based on in-depth interviews conducted with the people concerned. Among the various art works addressing the Fukushima nuclear disaster, her plays are rare in exposing how intricately the roles of victim and perpetrator are entangled. Setoyama’s plays raise the question of responsibility so crucial to processing cultural trauma and to triggering traumatogenic change. Relating the Fukushima nuclear disaster to the atomic bombings and the Chernobyl disaster, Setoyama opposes national discourses of a spatially and temporally limited disaster to construct 3.11 as a disaster on a global scale. Almost ten years after the calamity, a broad public debate to attribute responsibility for the nuclear disaster has not yet begun. And with the shift of national attention to the Tokyo Olympics and the global coronavirus pandemic, a rare window of opportunity for transformation in Japanese society is closed. Setoyama’s plays go far beyond the criticism of nuclear power and touch upon essential problems in Japanese society, such as the lack of an open culture of discussion and the strong suppression of dissenting voices, as my analysis will show.

摘要

通过仔细阅读濑户山美咲的两部后福岛戏剧，本文考察了戏剧在塑造文化记忆和提高批判意识方面的潜力。这位剧作家兼导演以通过对有关人士的深入采访来探索日本社会中的争议问题而闻名。在处理福岛核灾难的各种艺术作品中，她的戏剧很少能揭示受害者和肇事者的角色纠缠在一起的错综复杂。濑户山的戏剧提出了对处理文化创伤和引发创伤性变化至关重要的责任问题。将福岛核灾难与原子弹爆炸和切尔诺贝利灾难联系起来，濑户山反对时空有限灾难的国家话语，将3.11构建为全球范围的灾难。灾难发生近十年后，关于归咎于核灾难的责任的广泛公开辩论尚未开始。随着全国注意力转向东京奥运会和全球冠状病毒大流行，日本社会难得的转型机会之窗关闭了。正如我的分析将显示的那样，濑户山的戏剧远远超出了对核电的批评，而是触及了日本社会的基本问题，例如缺乏开放的讨论文化和强烈压制不同意见的声音。