Tetsuro Shigematsu, PhD, Language and Literacy Education
Empire of the Son: Using Research-Based Theatre to Explore Family Relationships
Supervisor(s): Dr. George Belliveau (LLED), Dr. Teresa Dobson (LLED), Dr. Carl Leggo (LLED) and Dr. Rita Irwin (EDCP)
Tuesday, October 9th, 2018 | 11:30am | Dorothy Somerset Studio Theatre (6361 University Blvd)
Tetsuro Shigematsu will present his dissertation at 11:30 AM on Tuesday, October 9, 2018 in Dorothy Somerset Studio Theatre (6361 University Blvd).
The supervisory committee comprises: Dr. George Belliveau (LLED),
Dr. Teresa Dobson (LLED), Dr. Carl Leggo (LLED) and Dr. Rita Irwin (EDCP)
The Examiners are: Dr. Stephen Heatley (THTR), Dr. Karen Meyer (EDCP); Chair: Dr. Carole Blackburn (ANTH)
The external Examiner is: Dr. Michael Finneran (University of Limerick)
The title of Tetsuro’s dissertation is:
Empire of the Son: Using Research-Based Theatre to Explore Family Relationships
See abstract below.
All are welcome.
Abstract
My father died on September 18, 2015. Less than three weeks later, on October 6th, I
stood onstage at The Cultch’s Vancity Culture Lab in East Vancouver and shared with
an audience of theatregoers the story of his death and his life. Since then, I have
performed this story over 150 times. At the centre of this dissertation is Empire of the
Son, a theatrical script that explores my contentious relationship with my Japanese
father. This exploration is based on memories, interviews, and artifacts such as
photographs, documents, and letters. Despite our many differences, my father and I
shared the same profession as public radio broadcasters. He worked for the BBC. I
worked for the CBC. This play intercuts audio excerpts from our respective radio
programs. Within the spectrum of research-based theatre, on one end there is a body of
plays created by researchers for specialized audiences within such academic disciplines
as healthcare or education resulting in most often “closed/conference performance based
on systematic research” (Lea, Belliveau, Wager, & Beck, 2011, p. 695). On the other
end of the spectrum, well known plays such as The Laramie Project (Kaufman, 2010),
or the work of playwright Anna Deveare Smith have been annexed by research-based
theatre scholars in response to those who continue to question its legitimacy “as a
credible genre of research reportage” (Saldaña, 2008a, p. 203). In other words, researchbased
theatre tends either to be created by academic researchers for
conference/stakeholder audiences (Lea et al., 2011), or created for mainstream audiences
by theatre artists who do not self-identify as researchers. Empire of the Son is uniquely
positioned as a play created by a self-identified arts-based researcher yet has managed to
reach mainstream audiences. At the time of this writing, it will have played in 17 cities,
2
and across four countries. Rarely has a dissertation play been so widely seen.
Developing, performing and touring Empire of the Son has allowed me as an
artist/scholar to navigate the territory of mainstream theatre through a bewildering
variety of circumstances and terrain that remains largely untrammeled by arts-based
researchers. This research represents an opportunity to critically reflect upon these
engagements and share insights I have gained. This is the story behind the story. These
developmental and experiential contributions are theoretically and methodologically
informed by research-based theatre (Ackroyd & O’Toole, 2010; Belliveau & Lea, 2016).
Saldaña (2010) notes a lack of accounts detailing the development and “critical decisionmaking
processes” (p. 4) encountered in research-based theatre projects. This gap is
addressed through a careful examination of the development and performance of Empire
of the Son. This exploration forms the spine of this research as I examine key moments,
tensions, and epiphanies I encountered while conceptualizing, performing and touring
this research.
