DatabaseScriptwriters Database
Betsuyaku Minoru
- Profile
- He was born in Manchuria in 1937. He entered Waseda University’s School of Political Science and Economics after graduating from Nagano Kita Senior High School (now Nagano Prefectural Nagano Senior High School). While still a student, he began writing absurdist plays that were influenced by Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett. In 1962, he attracted attention with Zō (The Elephant), depicting the loneliness and anguish of a man exposed to the atomic bomb. In 1966, he founded the Waseda Shōgekijō theater troupe with stage director Tadashi Suzuki and several contemporaries. In 1968, he received the Kunio Kishida Drama Award for The Little Match Girl and A Scene with a Red Bird. He received numerous awards, including the Individual Prize of the Kinokuniya Theater Award for Machi to Hikōsen (The City and the Airship) and Alice in Wonderland in 1970, the Education Minister’s Art Encouragement Prize for Giovanni’s Journey to His Father in 1988, and the Tsuruya Nanboku Drama Award for Yattekita Godot (Godot Has Come) in 2008. He released as many as 130 plays during his lifetime. He also wrote scripts for television dramas, including Sizukanaru Bakuyaku (Silent Explosives, 1972), Ano Kado no Mukō (Beyond That Corner, 1974), Uwasa no Iinkai (Rumor Committee, 1975), Ai wo Yamu (Sick of Love, 1980), Hoshi no Makiba (The Meadow of Stars, 1981), and Jinkan Itarutokoro Seizan Ari (There’s a Place to Die Anywhere—A Pilgrimage to New York, 1992), all of which were broadcast by NHK. He died in March 2020 at the age of 82.
- Masterpieces
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うわさの委員会