At the heart of the development of modern Japanese culture, the theatre mirrors the issues and concerns of a society transitioning from the Tokugawa era to the modern period. Modern Japanese Theatre and Performance fills a gap in current Japanese theatre scholarship; the book discusses the role of women in modern theatre, buto dance, experimental theatres that combine traditional theatre with modern forms, and plays by Abe Kobo, Mishima Yukio, and Senda Koreya. With important contributions from both established and emerging scholars, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in theatre, modern performance, or Japanese studies.

A major renaissance in Japanese theater occurred in the 1960s. During this period, the implications of Japan's prewar actions as well as its postwar materialistic course were interrogated with fierce intensity. Nowhere was the depth and dynamism of this cultural questioning more clearly expressed than in theater. Fueling the explosion of seminal theater activity that took place was the generation of young artists who are the focus of Alternative Japanese Drama.Foreword by J. Thomas Rimer

Beginning in late Edo, the Japanese faced a rapidly and irreversibly changing world in which industrialization, westernization, and internationalization was exerting pressure upon an entrenched traditional culture. The Japanese themselves felt threatened by Western powers, with their sense of superiority and military might. Yet, the Japanese were more prepared to meet this challenge than was thought at the time, and they used a variety of strategies to address the tension between modernity and tradition. Inexorable Modernity illuminates our understanding of how Japan has dealt with modernity and of what mechanisms, universal and local, we can attribute to the mode of negotiation between tradition and modernity in three major forms of art-theater, the visual arts, and literature. Dr. Hiroshi Nara brings together a thoughtful collection of essays that demonstrate that traditional and modern approaches to life feed off of one other, and tradition, whether real or created, was sought out in order to find a way to live with the burden of modernity. Inexorable Modernity is a valuable and enlightening read for those interested in Asian studies and history.