Theatre News

Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa dies

The legendary director has passed away at the age of 80

Mikjiro Hira (Claudius) and Ran Ohtori (Gertrude)
Mikjiro Hira (Claudius) and Ran Ohtori (Gertrude) in Yukio Ninagawa's production of Hamlet
© Takahiro Watanabe
The legendary Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa has died at the aged of 80.

Ninagawa staged extraordinary Japanese productions of Shakespeare, becoming famous in 1985 for his samurai Macbeth which played at the Edinburgh festival. He adapted many of the Bard's plays for the stage, including Titus Andronicus, which came to the Barbican in 2006, and featured bright red chord in place of blood.

As well as Shakespeare, the director was responsible for the adaptation of Haruki Murakami's remarkable novel Kafka on the Shore which opened at the Barbican last year.

Born in Saitama Prefecture, the director was awarded a CBE and was made a member of the Shakespeare Globe Council at Shakespeare's Globe in 2002. He was awarded Japan's Order of Culture in 2010.

He collaborated extensively with the RSC and staged King Lear with Nigel Hawthorne as Shakespeare's king.

The director died of Pneumonia at a hospital in Tokyo.

Tributes were paid to Ninagawa, including one from Greg Doran, artistic director of the RSC, who said:
"We first became aware of his theatrical genius when Thelma Holt introduced his astonishing production of Medea to the UK in the early eighties. His ravishing Titus Andronicus was performed in Stratford as part of the Complete Works Festival in 2006. I am thrilled that we were able to include a short extract from his beautiful cherry blossom Macbeth in Shakespeare Live! From the RSC which was broadcast on Shakespeare's 400th anniversary last month."

The Barbican Centre tweeted: