Gaiety Theatre, Yokohama

Last updated April 03, 2019

The Gaiety Theatre is a public hall in Naka-ku, Yokohama, Japan. It was built in 1866 by Dutch merchant MJB Noordhoek Hegt behind his office at Settlement plot 68. An amateur dramatic club was organized and performed at the public hall. Hegt rented the hall at a very reasonable price for the dramatic club's performances but it soon proved to be too small and was also being used for many other activities so, in 1870, another small theater was built on Honmachi Street and became the original Gaiety Theatre.

Naka-ku (中区) is one of the 18 wards of the city of Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. In 2010, the ward had an estimated population of 146,563 and a population density of 7,080 persons per km². The total area was 20.86 km².

Yokohama is the second largest city in Japan by population, and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu. It is a major commercial hub of the Greater Tokyo Area.

Dutch people or the Dutch are a Germanic ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Aruba, Suriname, Guyana, Curaçao, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United States. The Low Countries were situated around the border of France and the Holy Roman Empire, forming a part of their respective peripheries, and the various territories of which they consisted had become virtually autonomous by the 13th century. Under the Habsburgs, the Netherlands were organised into a single administrative unit, and in the 16th and 17th centuries the Northern Netherlands gained independence from Spain as the Dutch Republic. The high degree of urbanization characteristic of Dutch society was attained at a relatively early date. During the Republic the first series of large-scale Dutch migrations outside of Europe took place.

This theatre also proved to be too small for the expanding audiences and in 1885 a new building was built on the crest of the Bluff at 256 Yamate and most performances moved to this new building. A touring theatre company led by George Crichton Miln gave some of the first full performances in Japan of Shakespeare's plays in English at the Gaiety Theatre in 1891.^[1]

Yamate (山手) is the name of a historic neighbourhood in Naka-ku, Yokohama often referred to in English as The Bluff. The neighbourhood is famous as having been a foreigners' residential area in the Bakumatsu, Meiji and Taishō periods. While still dominantly residential in character, with views over downtown Yokohama, historic residential properties, ornamental gardens and public parks, the area is also a popular visitor destination.

In 1908 this building was renamed as the Yamanote Gaiety Theatre, completely replaced the small Gaiety Theatre on Honmachi Street. Performances continued at this location until the Gaiety Theatre was completely destroyed in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.

The Great Kantō earthquake struck the Kantō Plain on the Japanese main island of Honshū at 11:58:44 JST on Saturday, September 1, 1923. Varied accounts indicate the duration of the earthquake was between four and ten minutes.

The Gaiety Theatre was not rebuilt after the earthquake and dramatic performances in Yokohama were all but forgotten. In 1980, Iwasaki Gakuen Academy built a museum at 256 Yamate to commemorate the school's 50th anniversary. During construction of this museum bricks from the original Gaiety Theater were discovered and used in the construction. The museum includes theatre space which available for public use and displays of props and clothing used for performances at the original Gaiety Theatre.

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References

↑ Wells, Stanley (2002). Shakespeare For All Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 335. ISBN 0-19-516093-2.

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[1] Wells, Stanley (2002). Shakespeare For All Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 335. ISBN 0-19-516093-2.