Making Theatre: Rashomon - A Play Is Born

A number of today's top filmmakers revere the work done by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. His film Rashomon remains a classic due largely to the artful way it attempts to examine how many people can observe the same event yet recall it in very different ways. The story involves the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband. It's a psychological crime drama still often alluded to when modern-day events elicit widely differing testimony from alleged eyewitnesses to the same tragedy. The basic questions surrounding the concept of truth are also on trial here. Which of the four witnesses is telling the truth in a way that most closely resembles the events as they actually took place? How does a person's point of view color what he or she sees in life?