Background
Kaoru Osanai was born in 1881 in Hiroshima Prefecturei, Japan.
Kaoru Osanai was born in 1881 in Hiroshima Prefecturei, Japan.
He graduated from the Literature Department of Tokyo University in 1906. While a student at the First Higher School he became a Christian under the influence of Kanzo Uchimura and started the magazine Shichinin (Seven Persons) together with Musoan Takebayashi and other friends.
After graduation, he started the magazine Shin Shicho (New Thoughts). He became a supporter of Yoho Ii, a Shimpa school actor, of the Masagoza Theater. Together with Sadanji Ichikawa, kabuki actor who had just returned from study abroad, he started the Jiyu Gekijo (Free Theater) in 1909. Its first production was Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman" which impressed the younger intellectuals deeply.
After the Jiyu Gekijo had given six productions, Osanai traveled to Europe in 1912. After returning to Japan, he translated Western plays and produced them himself. He helped organize the Shochiku Motion Picture Company, became director of the Shochiku Cinema Actors School and director of Shochiku's Kamata Studios.
Kaoru Osanai and Yoshi Hijikata established the Tsukiji Little Theater in 1924. There he produced "The Sea Battle," an expressionist play, plays of Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorki experimentally.
He organized the Radio Drama Research Institute in 1925. Kaoru Osanai visited the Soviet Union as a state guest in 1928.