At the Crossroads of Cultures: A Story of Two Performances

Abstract

The article describes two theater performances: the first took place in the Chinese Theater of Tsarskoye Selo in the summer of 1803, and the second one (or, rather a series of guest performances) – a hundred years later, in 1902, in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The first performance was shown for Emperor Alexander I and his guests including the Japanese sailors who were leaving for their motherland with Ivan F. Kruzenshtern’s global circumnavigation. The description of the performance the Japanese sailors left became part of the manuscript Kankai Ibun (“Surprising Information about the Seas Surrounding [Earth]”) written in 1807. The performances of 1902 were presented by the Kabuki guest company headed by Otojirō Kawakami with actress Sada Yacco, the star of the company, attracting most attention. The performances shown in Russia aroused a mixed reaction among spectators and art critics, which is proven by periodical editions of those days. The article analyzes specific perception of foreign-language theater culture reflected in the spectators’ descriptions and concludes that, regardless of the reaction to strange and unusual things, the acquaintance with other culture dramatically broadens the spectator’s horizons and allows discerning something new in one’s national culture.