Il teatro degli androidi. La tradizione giapponese e il Robot-Human Theatre di Hirata Oriza: per una nuova frontiera del teatro.

Robotics plays and increasingly relevant role in contemporary Japan and in the last decades has found its place, in a natural fashion, in social and working environments. Experimentation in the robotic field, in truth, gathers different countries and social initiatives worldwide that find in this field of study a prolific area on constant mutation. Through the analysis of the Robot­Human Theatre Project, born from the collaboration between the playwright and theatrical director Hirata Oriza, and robotics engineer Ishiguro Hiroshi, the research here proposed aims to outline the peculiar characteristics of Japanese robotics and the impact of its incessant development on a social and anthropological level. The focus point of the thesis is the analysis of the project's five performances that includes flesh and blood actors together with androids. I, worker (2008), In the heart of the forest (2010), Sayonara (2010/2012), Three sisters android version (2012) and La Métamorphose version androïde (2014), other than illustrating one of the aspects of the marriage between art and technology, have allowed for a deep understanding of the current Japanese society. Following these performances has given the necessary for, on one side, deepening into Hirata Oriza's theatrical language, and on the other side, through the topics evoked by the author, facing some of the most urgent matters of the Japanese world, such as the Fukushima accident on 2011, the hikikomori social case and the relationship between humans and robots. The research is structured on a transversal methodology that takes account of historical, anthropological and social aspects of the issue under consideration on and makes use of unedited documents found during the on site research in Japan, carried out in close contact with Seinendan Theatre Company founded in 1983 and currently directed by Hirata Oriza.