{"id":496,"date":"2021-12-12T22:21:57","date_gmt":"2021-12-12T22:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/?p=496"},"modified":"2026-06-19T10:38:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T10:38:29","slug":"aural-oral-histories-of-pain-and-trust-in-miyagi-satoshis-revelation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/aural-oral-histories-of-pain-and-trust-in-miyagi-satoshis-revelation\/","title":{"rendered":"Aural\/Oral Histories of Pain and Trust in Satoshi Miyagi\u2019s R\u00e9v\u00e9lation<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tomoka Tsukamoto<\/strong>*<\/a> and Ted Motohashi<\/strong>**<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Our essay analyzes Satoshi Miyagi\u2019s production of R\u00e9v\u00e9lation<\/font>, written by the Cameroon-born dramatist L\u00e9onora Miano, translated into Japanese by Akihito Hirano and staged first at La Colline\u2014Th\u00e9\u00e2tre national, Paris, in August 2018, and then in Shizuoka Arts Theatre, Japan in January 2019. The analysis investigates the dimensions of speech, sound and bodily movement characteristic of Miyagi\u2019s directorial approach as an example of an aural\/oral dramaturgy that reconfigures the audience\u2019s sensory adaptation. In this play, Miano uses a mythological framework to take up the controversial question of the African complicity in the slave trade and the complex relationship between victim and perpetrator in this historically sensitive issue. The play dramatizes the judiciary court in which the Goddess Inyi presides to hear testimonies from the African people who cooperated with the European slave traders. This hearing is conducted to give belated justice to Ubuntus, the lost souls of the perished slaves who have not been mourned, deprived of any opportunity to talk or listen. Through an analysis of Miyagi\u2019s production, we aim to argue that oral histories can become viable in theatre by way of aural histories, particularly in dealing with controversial historical incidents like the slave trade\u2014in which most of the victims have been deprived of their verbal as well as auditory capabilities under brutal and inhuman circumstances. A theatrical representation which pays attention to the intricate relationship between our capacities to speak and hear within a prehistorical framework of African mythologies could be an effective and innovative example of aural\/oral dramaturgies, as elucidated by our analysis below.

Keywords: <\/strong>Aural\/oral histories, revelation, Satoshi Miyagi, \u201ctwo-in-one\u201d method, L\u00e9onora Miano, African slave trade, testimony, judgement<\/p>\n\n\n\n

African Slave Trade as a Historical Revelation<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

L\u00e9onora Miano was born in 1973, in Cameroon, and currently lives in France. Her works have centered upon the colonial histories of the African slave trade, particularly the controversial issues of collusive activities by African rulers in this operation. She received the Femina Prize in 2013 for her novel Seasons of Shadow<\/em>, which deals with this issue in a narrative form. R\u00e9v\u00e9lation<\/em> is one of her Red in Blue Trilogie<\/em> of plays, with Sacrifices<\/em> and Tombeau, <\/em>published in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n

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L\u00e9onora Miano. Photo: Wikipedia<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The action of R\u00e9v\u00e9lation<\/em> takes place on the \u201cFirst Land,\u201d where a group of Mayibuyes, representing human souls before birth, are on strike, claiming to Goddess Inyi, the ultimate source of human lives, that they do not wish to enter the human world. The reason for their unnatural disobedience is that they have met Ubuntus, the deceased human souls as a result of the slave trade, who have died without being mourned and consequently unable to be reborn. Ubuntus have been screaming for a hearing for five hundred years, and, finally, their voices have reached the ears of Mayibuyes, who would plead Inyi to summon the perpetrators in the slave trade before her to confess, so that their testimonies will be heard by everyone concerned. Inyi, having granted Mayibuyes\u2019 request, opens a court session to let the guilty testify, so that Ubuntus hear the circumstances of the defendants\u2019 involvement in the slave trade.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The slave trade deprived those captured of their histories\u2014as their public means of self-expression\u2014by displacing them into the realm of the unknown. Miano\u2019s R\u00e9v\u00e9lation<\/em> bravely tackles the thorny issue of African collusion in the slave trade, not in order to denounce it but to put trust in the African people\u2019s capacity to take responsibility for this matter. As we argue below, the director Satoshi Miyagi\u2019s dramaturgy foregrounds this historically controversial issue as an illustrative case for the viability of the oral\/aural dimension of theatre to restore the victims\u2019 vanquished voices hidden within the deep and multiple layers of history. While, on the one hand, conceptually as well as theatrically, the mise-en-sc\u00e8neof the court hearing is in itself significant in the context of aural\/oral dramaturgies because it entails oral and aural proceedings, on the other hand, the text creates an obstacle to a realistic approach as it also involves the mythological framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miano\u2019s play is a bold and arguably unprecedented attempt to excavate the historically annihilated voices and bodies of the victims and the perpetrators of the African slave trade, which could be presented as a \u201crevelation\u201d only through a particular kind of aural\/oral dramaturgy. Miyagi\u2019s unique directorial method solves this issue presented by the play which is at once politically sensitive and structurally mythological.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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