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‘As Modern as Tomorrow’: Australian Entrepreneurs and Japanese Entertainment, 1957–1968

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2018

Abstract

This article compares the efforts of two Australian entrepreneurs to import Japanese entertainments for theatres in mid-twentieth-century Australia. David N. Martin of the Tivoli Circuit and Harry Wren, an independent producer, were rivals in the business of touring variety-revue. Both travelled to Japan in 1957, the year that the governments of Australia and Japan signed a landmark trade agreement. Whereas Martin's efforts were hampered by the legacy of wartime attitudes, Wren embraced the post-war optimism for trade. Wren became the Australian promoter for the Toho Company of Japan, touring a series of Toho revues until 1968. These Toho tours have been overlooked in Australian histories of cultural exchange with Japan. Drawing on evidence from archival sources and developing insights from foreign policy of the time, this article examines why Australian entrepreneurs turned to Japan, what Toho sent on tour, and how Toho's revues played in Australia. It analyses trade in touring entertainment as a form of entrepreneurial diplomacy that sought to realize the prospects of regional integration.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2018 

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References

NOTES

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26 ‘Margo the Z Bomb’, Series 2, Box 33, SLV MS 11527.

27 Series 6, Boxes 81–2, SLV MS 11527; all subsequent quotations from this series.

28 Martin died of a heart attack, aged fifty-nine, at a hotel in San Francisco on 2 March 1958.

29 Meaney, Towards a New Vision, p. 116.

30 Cherry Blossom Show (Australian tour, 1958), Australian Performing Arts Collection (APAC), Melbourne, original emphasis.

31 ‘Japanese Musical Co. for Australia’, The Age, 17 October 1957, p. 3.

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36 Toho, Toho Sanjunenshi, p. 384.

37 Cherry Blossom Show (Empire Theatre, Sydney, 1958), APAC, Melbourne.

38 Ibid.

39 ‘Japanese Musical Co. for Australia’; £35,000 Australian pounds was equivalent to $77,951 US dollars in 1957; it is not reported whether it was Wren or Toho who bore the risk of advancing money for airfares. Historical rates for currency exchange here and in subsequent notes are from Measuring Worth, at www.measuringworth.com, accessed 3 August 2018.

40 ‘Customs Puzzled: 60 Girls from Japan’, Sun-Herald, 9 March 1958, p. 5.

41 Robert Drewe, ‘From Japan with Cash’, The Age, 20 January 1968, p. 12; ‘Harry Wren Dead at 57’, SMH, 31 August 1973, p. 3; West, John, ‘Harry Wren’, in Parsons, Philip and Chance, Victoria, eds., Companion to Theatre in Australia (Sydney: Currency Press, 1995), p. 652Google Scholar; reports of the loss range between US$80,537 and US$223,713 in 1958.

42Cherry Blossom Show Scores Hit in Aussie’, Variety, 6 August 1958, p. 12.

43 Toho, Toho Sanjunenshi, p. 384.

44 Fred Gebbie, ‘Wren Opens Japan Package’, Billboard, 20 April 1963, p. 43.

45 Advertisement, SMH, 19 March 1958, p. 18.

46 M.L. ‘Japanese Revue at Empire’, SMH, 15 March 1958, p. 5. The Takarazuka revue received a similar critical reception on the company's 1939 and 1959 seasons in New York, especially from John Martin of the New York Times; see Park, ‘The Takarazuka Girls’ Revue in the West’, p 32; Park, ‘Staging Japan’, pp. 365–6.

47 S.H. Northcote, ‘Cherry Blossom Bright, but …’, The Advertiser, 5 May 1958, p. 8.

48 Bruce Grant, ‘Western Influence in Japanese Show’, The Age, 17 May 1958, p. 3.

49 Tokyo Nights (Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, 1965), APAC.

50 ‘Aussies Dicker for Jap Invasion’.

51 Cherry Blossom Show (Australian tour, 1958), APAC.

52 Tokyo Nights (Melbourne, 1965), APAC.

53 Drewe, ‘From Japan with Cash’, p. 12. When Australia converted to decimal currency on 14 February 1966, one Australian pound was equivalent to two Australian dollars; $2 million Australian dollars was equivalent to $2.225 million US dollars in 1967.

54 Ibid., p. 12.

55 ‘$10m Towers Planned’, SMH, 22 February 1968, p. 4; ‘Japanese Plan for Tivoli Site’, SMH, 9 February 1968, p. 1.

56 ‘Japan's Sydney Plan’, The Age, 22 February 1968, p. 5; reports on the cost of the redevelopment ranged from AU$10 million to AU$15 million, equivalent to US$11.1 million to US$16.6 million in 1968.

57 ‘Night Blasts Wreck Harry Wren's Home’, SMH, 12 March 1968, p. 1; ‘Detectives Doubt Fire Deliberate’, SMH, 13 March 1968, p. 4; Wren claimed the home was worth AU$300,000, equivalent to US$333,704 in 1968.

58 The initial report on the fire in the Sydney Morning Herald mentions Toho's interest in redeveloping the Tivoli site in association with Wren; ‘Night Blasts’.

59 ‘Japanese Company “not interested in Tivoli”’, SMH, 26 April 1968, p. 1.

60 Cherry Blossom Show (Australian tour, 1958).

61 Cherry Blossom Show (Empire Theatre, Sydney 1958).

62 Tokyo Nights (Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, 1965).

63 Japan by Night (Princess Theatre, Melbourne, 1968); ‘Something Short of Extravagance’, SMH, 12 March 1968, p. 14.

64 Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, 56 (1970), p. 303Google Scholar.

65 ‘Multi Million Australian–Japanese Show Business Deal’, Keith Byron, photographer, National Archives of Australia, A1501, A7957/1.

66 Geoffrey Hutton, ‘Japan Western Style’, The Age, 17 February 1968, p. 4.

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68 Ibid., p. 195; John Martin, ‘Dance: Japanese Girls’, New York Times, 17 September 1959, p. 49; quoted in Park, ‘Staging Japan’, p. 364.

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