Shinjuku Ryozanpaku to Perform Juro Kara's Work for Yukio Ninagawa in the Purple Tent!

The 81st performance by the general incorporated association Shinjuku Ryozanpaku, "The Black Tulip," will be staged from Saturday, April 25, 2026, to Sunday, May 10, 2026, at a special purple tent within the grounds of Shinjuku's Hanazono Shrine (5-17-3 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo). Tickets are now on sale through Confetti (operated by Longrun Planning Co., Ltd.).

This spring, a new production is set for Shinjuku Ryozanpaku's purple tent! First performed in 1983 at the PARCO Seibu Theater, this play was written by Juro Kara for Yukio Ninagawa, and it is a masterpiece where the aesthetics and dense worldviews of both artists vividly intersect. Director Kim Su-jin, who inherits their theatrical spirit, takes on this work with deep respect and dynamism as his second project following "The Story of Shitaya Mannencho," for which he won the Kinokuniya Theatre Award for Individual Achievement in 2022.

Synopsis

Echo, a struggling voice impersonator, arrives at a noisy pachinko parlor to return money he found. While searching for the owner, Echo falls in love with a particularly distinctive machine, the "Black Tulip." When he impulsively kisses the tulip, the machine's front panel falls away, revealing a woman behind it. She is Keiko, the owner of the money. The money was essential for her to get her older sister, Nobuko, released from prison. Nobuko was once in love with a florist named Shunta and was trying to create a "black tulip" for him. As she neared completion, Shunta had an affair with another woman. Witnessing this, Nobuko caused a violent incident and was imprisoned. Since then, Nobuko has refused to leave prison, becoming a shut-in. Keiko asks Shunta to help secure her sister's release, but he is already engaged to another woman. Furthermore, Shunta deliberately lets the black tulip bulb, which Nobuko had created with great effort, wither and die...