For more than 20 years, UCLA professor Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei says, she has found herself walking right outside the walls of the ivory tower into scandal, provocation, outrage and violence that took her over, immersing her in a surreal Fellini-esque environment.

Theatrically, that is.

The scholar has been engaged in a long-running cultural and personal obstacle course to publish a book on Japan's Terayama Shûji, who, controversial in his time, is now an avant-garde cult hero as he approaches what would have been his 70th birthday on Dec. 10.

One of Japan's most gifted and controversial playwrights/directors, Terayama died more than 20 years ago, but through him - and after many trying years - Sorgenfrei has been able not only to fulfill her lifelong quest, but also to demystify many aspects of Japanese life by publishing a book that will be accessible to anyone who likes theater, or is interested in any aspect of Japan.

Sorgenfrei, a theater professor in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, situates Terayama in cultural and historical context in her book, which details his extraordinary life and examines his theatrical career, including plays that won extravagant praise and condemnation, and sometimes caused audience hysteria, fights between actors and spectators, and even the accidental burning of one critic's face. In short, his plays and films were always media events.

"Lots of people get confused about the Japanese because in some cases, they seem so very modern and Western, and at other times, they seem so 'Oriental' and 'inscrutable,'" said Sorgenfrei, author of the newly published "Unspeakable Acts: The Avant-Garde Theatre of Terayama Shûji and Postwar Japan." "However, I am trying to help clarify those areas of culture which are specifically Japanese and those areas that are similar to the West. There is nothing 'inscrutable' if you learn to understand why people behave as they do."

"This book helps people understand how many contemporary Japanese think and feel - and makes it clear how the specific history of that nation has influenced them," Sorgenfrei said.

"It explores the overall culture by focusing in on one very specific artist whose life and work is emblematic of many aspects of the culture."

Sorgenfrei met the controversial playwright, and was able to interview him and attend rehearsals and performances in Japan, beginning when she was a graduate student. She did not know then that she was embarking on a long-term effort to overcome mayhem, death and litigation to write about this titan of Japanese experimental theater who, as one critic wrote, "raised almost as many eyebrows as goose bumps" with his work.

After Terayama's death in 1983 at age 47, Sorgenfrei continued her plan to write about him by meeting with his ex-wife, who had remained his partner and producer and who agreed to permit a book to move forward.

But the playwright's mother, who was fiercely devoted to her only child and who had tried to burn his apartment down shortly after he married, legally fought the ex-wife for rights to his literary estate. It took the courts eight years to settle the case, and the mother won, so Sorgenfrei now had to work through her, essentially starting over in efforts to win permission to use the materials and insights the playwright had so generously provided.

After much waiting and wrangling, and after the mother's death, University of Hawaii Press now, finally, publishes Sorgenfrei's 20-year effort. The book includes translations of three sometimes-shocking plays and large portions of Terayama's theatrical theories, as well as Sorgenfrei's delving into Japanese and Western psychoanalysis, anthropology, sociology, gender studies and aesthetics, and how they affected his work and its reception.

"I think that the external obstacles, in the long run, ended up being good for me and the book," Sorgenfrei now allows.

Among key themes she explores are personal and national identity in the wake of Hiroshima and the occupation, the theory of Japan as a "mother-centered culture," and the artistic legacies and practices of Terayama, who has spawned fans attending his plays in masks of his likeness, a museum devoted to his life and writings, and comparisons to everyone from Robert Wilson to John Cage to Andy Warhol.

"What's incredible is that a lot of people who were important in the '60s and '70s get forgotten 20, 30, 40 years later," Sorgenfrei said. "But Terayama continues to be a cult figure in Japan. Understanding why people are still enthralled by someone who enthralled them back then can help us understand what's going on in Japan today, what young people are thinking .

"I think that what he does is he addresses subjects that are generally taboo - that a lot of people secretly feel, but aren't allowed to talk about."

Sorgenfrei says that the issue of conflicted identity - both personal and national - is at the center of her studies of Terayama, rife in his work and in the Japanese people. Views of national identity and heritage, of the roles of women and mothers, of "traditional" vs. "contemporary" Japanese society, all have a strong role in his plays, which depict sexuality,
violence, the function of art and cultural identification in unexpected and controversial ways, she said.

Now the book itself is generating talk, a welcome change for Sorgenfrei, who once had many long hours of valuable interviews with the genius playwright trapped inside her, unable to publish or share.

"I strongly believe that scholars have a moral obligation to share material they are privileged to know. It's about education and freedom of knowledge: everyone should have access to this material, so that they can understand Terayama and Japan more fully," Sorgenfrei said.

"Carol Sorgenfrei has performed a valuable service in making Terayama and his theater more accessible to the world beyond Japan," wrote John Gillespie, co-author of "Alternative Japanese Drama." "Sorgenfrei, the best-prepared scholar outside Japan to approach the phenomenon of Terayama, has written an important book of original and excellent scholarship that is eminently readable by student, scholar and professional alike."

Consistently ranked among the leading institutions in the nation, the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television is unique in the world in that it brings together the arts of theater, film and television in one academic institution. UCLA's reputation as an outstanding training ground for the theater, film and television professions, and for critical scholarship, is based on its long tradition of fostering creative growth, encouraging experimentation and ensuring artistic freedom. Many of the most respected names in the entertainment and communication arts, and the world of scholarship, are UCLA alumni.

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