A bittersweet tale based on a scenario by the Kabuki playwright known as "The Shakespeare of Japan."

Princeton University's Program in Theater and Dance opens its fall season with Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards, an adaptation of an eighteenth century puppet play by the man known as "Japan's Shakespeare." The production runs from November 12 through November 20 on the Berlind stage of McCarter Theatre. A compelling, tragicomic fairytale of love and honor, originally written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Fair Ladies has been adapted into English blank verse for actors by Peter Oswald, writer-in-residence at Shakespeare's Globe in London. It premiered in 1996 at the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain.

Fair Ladies tells the story of what happens when two maids of honor at the court of the Empress fall in love with two samurai from her twin brother's court. Given the rigid society in which they live, the lovers find risk renunciation, banishment and death. Ultimately, love, mercy, and a particularly helpful moon - actually a character in the play! - work to effect their happy unions. First produced in 1714, Fair Ladies combines high comedy, intense tragedy, and fantastic adventure, with a cast of characters including samurai, Buddhist monks, and a particularly nasty villain.

Born into the samurai class himself in 1653, Chikamatsu began writing in his late twenties. His early experiences in samurai, courtier, actor, and merchant life gave him the comprehensive view of Japanese society found in both his kabuki and bunraku puppet plays, nearly one hundred of which survive. As a writer for two of the most popular forms of theatre, Chikamatsu risked the scorn of his aristocratic contemporaries, but his elevation of the literary value of the popular stage has won him the title of Japan's greatest playwright.

Peter Oswald, author of this version of Fair Ladies, is longtime playwright-in-residence at Shakespeare's Globe in London and one of the few living practitioners of verse drama in the English-speaking world. In addition to poetic adaptations of plays by Sophocles, Plautus, Racine, Moliere, Schiller, and Lorca, Oswald has created any number of original verse dramas, including Augustine's Oak and The Golden Ass, both of which premiered at the Globe.

The Princeton Fair Ladies will be directed by Erica Schmidt, best known for her New York Shakespeare Festival production of Shakespeare's As You Like It as well as the Off-Broadway production of Debbie Does Dallas, a musical spoof of the infamous x-rated classic. According to Ms. Schmidt, her Berlind production of Fair Ladies will not attempt to replicate the conventions of Japanese theatre: "Our goal is to tell this beautiful story about the power of true love as honestly as we can. Peter Oswald's adaptation is an Englishman's slant on a Japanese play. His iambic pentameter version of Chikamatsu and my cast of thirteen young American actors give us permission to perform this classic piece of Japanese theater in a new and exciting way."

Fair Ladies features a student cast of thirteen, including four of the stars of last year's Fall Show, Big Love - Jed Peterson '06, John Doherty '06, Andy Brown '07 and Andy Hoover '07 - as well as Irene Lucio '07, Alex Ripp '08, Ronit Rubinstein '05, Arthur Burkle '07, Debra Siegel '05, Annie Preis '07, Uma Tadepalli '07, Georgie Sherrington '08, and Anh-Thu Ngo '06.

Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards will be performed on the Berlind stage of the McCarter Theatre on November 12 and 13, and November 18-20 at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $10 to $15. See our Events page for information on how to purchase tickets.