| Kaoru Osanai | |
|---|---|
Kaoru Osanai in 1927 |
|
| Born | July 26, 1881 Hiroshima |
| Died | December 25, 1928 (aged 47) |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Occupation | Theatre director, playwright |
Kaoru Osanai (小山内 薫 Osanai Kaoru, 26 July 1881 – 25 December 1928) was a Japanese theater director, playwright, and actor central in the development of modern Japanese theater.
Graduating from Tokyo University, Osanai founded the Free Theater (Jiyū Gekijō) with Ichikawa Sadanji II in 1909 and staged translations of Ibsen, Chekov, and Gorky,[1] but there he experienced the limits of doing realist theater with kabuki actors.[2] After traveling to Russia in the 1910s, he helped found the Tsukiji Little Theater in 1924 and continued to influence shingeki theater in Japan. He also played an important role in film history when he was hired by Shochiku in 1920 to head their actors school. He helped produce and appeared in Souls on the Road, a groundbreaking work in Japanese cinema, and raised such important film talents as Minoru Murata, Kiyohiko Ushihara, Daisuke Itō, Yasujirō Shimazu, and Denmei Suzuki. He also taught at Keio University and helped support such young writers as Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.[1]