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This book is an annotated collection of English-language documents
by foreigners writing about Japan's kabuki theatre in the
half-century after the country was opened to the West in 1853.
Using memoirs, travelogues, diaries, letters, and reference books,
it contains all significant writing about kabuki by
foreigners-resident or transient-during the Meiji period
(1868-1912), well before the first substantial non-Japanese book on
the subject was published. Its chronologically organized chapters
contain detailed introductions. Twenty-seven authors, represented
by edited versions of their essays, are supplemented by detailed
summaries of thirty-five others. The author provides insights into
how Western visitors-missionaries, scholars, diplomats, military
officers, adventurers, globetrotters, and even a precocious teenage
girl-responded to a world-class theatre that, apart from a tiny
number of pre-Meiji encounters, had been hidden from the world at
large for over two centuries. It reveals prejudices and
misunderstandings, but also demonstrates the power of great theatre
to bring together people of differing cultural backgrounds despite
the barriers of language, artistic convention, and the very
practice of theatergoing. And, in Ichikawa Danjuro IX, it presents
an actor knowledgeable foreigners considered one of the finest in
the world.
America’s third largest city until 1890, Brooklyn, New York, had
a striking theatrical culture before it became a borough of Greater
New York in 1898. As the city gained size and influence, more and
more theatres arose, with at least 15 venues ultimately vying for
favor. But, for all its productivity, too many theatregoers
preferred the discomforts of a ferry and horsecar trip to New
York’s playhouses instead of supporting the local product. Nor
did the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 do Brooklyn’s
theatres any favors. Manhattan’s Goliath slayed Brooklyn’s
David.This first comprehensive study of Brooklyn’s old-time
theatre describes the city’s early history, each of its many
playhouses, its plays and actors (including nearly every foreign
and domestic star), and its scandals and catastrophes, including
the theatre fire that killed nearly 300. Brooklyn’s ongoing
struggle to establish theatres in a society dominated by
anti-theatrical preachers, including Henry Ward Beecher, is
observed, as are all the ways that Brooklyn typified 19th century
American theatre, from stock companies to combinations. Replete
with fascinating anecdotes, this is the story of a major city from
which theatre all but vanished before being reborn as a present-day
artistic mecca.
Unique in any Western language, this is an invaluable resource for
the study of one of the world's great theatrical forms. It includes
essays by established experts on Kabuki as well as younger scholars
now entering the field, and provides a comprehensive survey of the
history of Kabuki; how it is written, produced, staged, and
performed; and its place in world theater. Compiled by the editor
of the influential Asian Theater Journal, the book covers four
essential areas - history, performance, theaters, and plays - and
includes a translation of one Kabuki play as an illustration of
Kabuki techniques.
Historical Dictionary of Japanese Traditional Theatre is the only
dictionary that offers detailed comprehensive coverage of the most
important terms, people, and plays in the four principal
traditional Japanese theatrical forms n, ky gen, bunraku, and
kabuki supplemented with individual historical essays on each form.
This updated edition adds well over 200 plot summaries representing
each theatrical form in addition to: .a chronology; .introductory
essay; .appendixes; .an extensive bibliography; .over 1500
cross-referenced entries on important terms; .brief biographies of
the leading artists and writers; .and plot summaries of significant
plays. This book is an excellent access point for students,
researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Japanese
theatre."
On August 15, 1945, when the war ended, almost all of Tokyo and
Osaka's theaters had been destroyed or heavily damaged by American
bombs. The Japanese urban infrastructure was reduced to dust, and
so, one might have thought, would be the nation's spirit,
especially in the face of nuclear bombing and foreign occupation.
Yet, less than two weeks after the atom bombs had been dropped,
theater began to show signs of life. Before long, all forms of
Japanese theater were back on stage, and from death's ashes arose
the flower of art. Rising from the Flames contains sixteen essays,
many accompanied by photographic illustrations, by thirteen
specialists. They explore the triumphs and tribulations of
Occupation-period (1945-1952) theater, and cover not only such
traditional forms as kabuki, no, kyogen, bunraku puppet theater (as
well as the traditional marionette theater, the Yuki-za), and the
comic narrator's art of rakugo, but also the modern genres of
shingeki, musical comedy, and the all-female Takarazuka Revue.
Among the numerous topics discussed are censorship, theater
reconstruction, politics, internationalization, unionization, the
search for a national identity through drama, and the treatment of
the emperor on the pre- and postwar stage. The essays in this
volume examine how Japanese theater, subject to oppressive thought
control by prewar authorities, responded to the new-if temporarily
limited-freedom allowed by the American occupiers, attesting to
Japan's remarkable resilience in the face of national defeat.
Unique in any Western language, this is an invaluable resource for
the study of one of the world's great theatrical forms. It includes
essays by established experts on Kabuki as well as younger scholars
now entering the field, and provides a comprehensive survey of the
history of Kabuki; how it is written, produced, staged, and
performed; and its place in world theater. Compiled by the editor
of the influential Asian Theater Journal, the book covers four
essential areas - history, performance, theaters, and plays - and
includes a translation of one Kabuki play as an illustration of
Kabuki techniques.
A collection of fifteen essays written over nearly four decades by
one of America's best-known scholars of Japan's kabuki theatre.
Illustrated with numerous photographs, prints, and line drawings,
it includes an overview of kabuki and its impact on world theatre,
interviews with and biographical accounts of famous actors,
discussions of kabuki acting and staging techniques, an examination
of kabuki violence, accounts of English-language kabuki
productions, studies of theatrical architecture, a survey of
amateur kabuki in rural communities, and a comparison of kabuki
with the eighteenth-century English theatre. Each essay has been
revised, some considerably, and two previously unpublished essays
have been provided.
As part of its programme to promote democracy in Japan after World
War II, the American Occupation, headed by General Douglas
MacArthur, undertook to enforce rigid censorship policies aimed at
eliminating all traces of feudal thought in media and
entertainment, including kabuki. Faubion Bowers (1917-1999), who
served as personal aide and interpreter to MacArthur during the
Occupation, was appalled by the censorship policies and anticipated
the extinction of a great theatrical art. He used his position in
the Occupation administration and his knowledge of Japanese theatre
in his tireless campaign to save kabuki. Largely through Bowers's
efforts, censorship of kabuki had for the most part been eliminated
by the time he left Japan in 1948. Although Bowers is at the centre
of the story, this translation from the original Japanese treats a
critical period in the long history of kabuki as it was affected by
a single individual who had a commanding influence over it. It
offers details about Occupation censorship politics and kabuki
performance while providing yet another perspective on the history
of an enduring Japanese art form.
Masterpieces of Kabuki contains eighteen outstanding dramas taken
from the landmark four-volume series Kabuki Plays On Stage.
Together they cover the entire spectrum of kabuki drama from 1697
to 1905, the period during which kabuki's dramaturgy flourished
prior to the onset of Western dramatic influence. Major
playwrights, chronological periods of playwriting, and a variety of
play types (history, domestic, and dance dramas) and performance
styles are represented. All but one are in the current repertory
and regularly staged. The volume includes introductions to each
play and a new general introduction highlighting kabuki's
historical development and relating the plays to their performance
context. As the subtitle implies, the plays are translated as if
"on stage." Stage directions indicate major scenic effects, stage
action, costuming, makeup, music, and sound effects. In some cases,
complex stage actions such as stage fights are given in detail. The
plays collected here are all marvelous examples of dramatic
writing, intended to be acted on the stage before audiences. They
reveal kabuki's eras of brilliance and bravado, villainy and
vengeance, darkness and desire, and restoration and reform. All
continue to stir audiences to admiration and excitement.
Kabuki Plays On Stage represents a monumental achievement in
Japanese theatre studies, being the first collection of kabuki play
translations to be published in twenty-five years. Fifty-one plays,
published in four volumes, vividly trace kabuki's changing
relations to Japanese society during the premodern era. Volume 1
consists of thirteen plays that showcase early kabuki's
scintillating and boisterous styles of performance and illustrates
the contrasting dramatic techniques cultivated by actors in Edo
(Tokyo) and Kamigata (Osaka and Kyoto). The twelve plays translated
in Volume 2 cover a brief period, but one that saw important
developments in kabuki architecture, acting, dance, and the
manipulation of characters and themes. As the series title
indicates, the plays were translated to capture the vivacity of
performances on stage. The translations, each accompanied by a
thorough introduction that contextualizes the play, are based not
only on published texts, but performance scripts and the study of
the plays as they are performed in theatres today. Each volume is
lavishly illustrated with rare woodblock prints in full color of
Tokugawa- and Meiji-period productions as well as color and
black-and-white photographs of contemporary performances. Published
with the assistance of the Nippon Foundation.
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