Narrow Road to the Deep North facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Narrow Road to the Deep North
Written by	Edward Bond
Date of premiere	24 June 1968
Place of premiere	Belgrade Theatre, Coventry
Original language	English
Setting	Japan about the seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth centuries

Narrow Road to the Deep North is a 1968 satirical play on the British Empire by the English playwright Edward Bond.

It is a political parable set in Japan in the Edo period. It deals with the poet Basho and the changing political landscape over about 35 years.

The play won Bond the John Whiting Award for 1968.

Quotation

Of course, that's only a symbol, but we need symbols to protect us from ourselves.

Original production

It was first performed in 1968 for the Peoples and Cities conference at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, in a production directed by Jane Howell:

• Basho, old, a priest - Peter Needham
• Kiro, twenty - Paul Howes
• Argi - Malcolm Ingram
• Tola - Christopher Matthews
• Heigoo - John Rowe
• Breebree - Gordon Reid
• Shogo, twenty-five - Edward Peel
• Prime Minister - Peter Sproule
• Commodore, forty-seven - Nigel Hawthorne
• Georgina, thirty-nine - Susan Williamson
• Peasants, soldiers, tars, tribesmen, etc. -
• Alison King
• Diana Berriman
• Alan David
• Geoffrey White                               
• Vandra Edwards
• Malcolm Ingram
• Christopher Matthews
• John Rowe
• Gordon Reid
• Peter Sproule 

Royal Court Theatre

The play was then staged as part of an Edward Bond season at the Royal Court in 1969, to mark the abolition of stage censorship the previous year.