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–Introduction–

“Wasabi Stories” is a quotation and summary of a column which touches ones heart or not found on the internet.

It is a Japanese famous person’s story extracted from the NIKKEI news paper.

The purpose in posting the column in JAPAN Style is to cheer you up and to make you feel “it’ was worth reading!”

Wasabi (Japanese horseradish or mustard) is spicy and stimulate your nose and make you teary.

The columns in “Wasabi Stories” hopefully spice your heart and sometimes make you teary!

The stories were originally sent as E-mail Newsletter in Japanese. Some are a little old but we’ll eventually catch up with new ones.

“Death Tells How One Lived”

Today’s story teller is Toru Emori, who is famous as a theater actor and director.

In the column, he writes about “how to act the moment of dieing”.

It’s very intense and difficult moment to act to actors includes Emori.

About 30 years ago, when he was 27 years old, he first acted dead as Hamlet in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.

The scene was when hamlet dies after a fencing match.

Although he was breathing hard, he had to breathe quietly, and the theater lights were so bright even he closed his eyes; and besides, the stage went on after Hamlet died.

He learned how difficult and strange thing to act dead in front of people, and he also started wonder “no one can actually die to act dead, so whoever acts dead, it wouldn’t be very different, would it?

If acting is feeling, can actor act dead by feeling like dead?

It’s getting like Zen dialogues but the point is, the feeling at the moment of death must be important.”

How does man who has never seen someone died act dead?

Emori stretches his imagination of death from movies and novels; therefore, he has acted dead by drawing upon his imagination.

Haveing experienced various death in his acting career, he realized,“It’s more important to express how the person lived than expressing the moment of death. I think how one lived is expressed in one’s death.”

The NIKKEI  Apr/1/2009 by Toru Emori (actor)

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