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Established experts on Kabuki as well as younger scholars provide a comprehensive survey of the history of Kabuki; how it is written, produced, staged, and performed; its place in world theater; and a translation of one play.
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.
Introduces the letters of the alphabet with colorful illustrations and text that describes the culture and history of Japan.
Kabuki A Pocket Guide introduces readers to the foundations of Kabuki--its history and its actors, its acting styles and its performance, its color and music--to the sheer beauty and joy of Kabuki. Kabuki, the popular theatre of Japan, began in about 1603 and is still flourishing today. It was the entertainment of the common people as opposed to Noh, the refined theatre of the aristocracy, and is a close relative of the Bunraku puppet theater. All the actors in Kabuki, even those who play female roles, are men and plays and dances deal with the love of the heroes and villains form Japans real or legendary past. Concise enough to take to performance, this pocket guide to Kabuki provides a wealth of fascinating information about plays, the actors, and their history. As only an insider can do, the author takes us behind the scene to meet the actors, attend rehearsal, and get a first-hand look at the makeup, costumes, sets and props that go into a Kabuki performance.
Classic Noh, Kyogen and Kabuki Works Nothing reflects the beauty of life as much as Japanese theater. It is here that reality is held suspended and emptiness can fill the mind with words, music, dance, and mysticism. A.L. Sadler translates the mysteries of Noh, Kyogen, and Kabuki in his groundbreaking book, Japanese Plays. A seminal classic in its time, it provides a cross-section of Japanese theater that gives the reader a sampler of its beauty and power. The power of Noh is in its ability to create an iconic world that represents the attributes that the Japanese hold in highest esteem: family, patriotism, and honor. Kyogen plays provide comic relief often times performed between the serious and stoic Noh plays. Similarly, Sadler's translated Kyogen pieces are layered between the Noh and the Kabuki plays. The Kabuki plays were the theater of the common people of Japan. The course of time has given them the patina of folk art making them precious cultural relics of Japan. Sadler selected these pieces for translation because of their lighter subject matter and relatively upbeat endings—ideal for a western readership. More linear in their telling and pedestrian in the lessons learned these plays show the difficulties of being in love when a society is bent on conformity and paternal rule. The end result found in Japanese Plays is a wonderful selection of classic Japanese dramatic literature sure to enlighten and delight.
Satoko Shimazaki revisits three centuries of kabuki theater, reframing it as a key player in the formation of an early modern urban identity in Edo Japan and exploring the process that resulted in its re-creation in Tokyo as a national theatrical tradition. Challenging the prevailing understanding of early modern kabuki as a subversive entertainment and a threat to shogunal authority, Shimazaki argues that kabuki instilled a sense of shared history in the inhabitants of Edo (present-day Tokyo) by invoking "worlds," or sekai, derived from earlier military tales, and overlaying them onto the present. She then analyzes the profound changes that took place in Edo kabuki toward the end of the early modern period, which witnessed the rise of a new type of character: the vengeful female ghost. Shimazaki's bold reinterpretation of the history of kabuki centers on the popular ghost play Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (The Eastern Seaboard Highway Ghost Stories at Yotsuya, 1825) by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. Drawing not only on kabuki scripts but also on a wide range of other sources, from theatrical ephemera and popular fiction to medical and religious texts, she sheds light on the development of the ubiquitous trope of the vengeful female ghost and its illumination of new themes at a time when the samurai world was losing its relevance. She explores in detail the process by which nineteenth-century playwrights began dismantling the Edo tradition of "presenting the past" by abandoning their long-standing reliance on the sekai. She then reveals how, in the 1920s, a new generation of kabuki playwrights, critics, and scholars reinvented the form again, "textualizing" kabuki so that it could be pressed into service as a guarantor of national identity.
"Heroes of the kabuki stage" is written for kabuki lovers and collectors of kabuki woodblock prints, eager to know more about the interesting images on their prints. This lavishly illustrated book has no precedent in a Western language outside Japan. The introduction to this form of theatrical art is placed in the historical and social context of Tokugawa and Meiji Japan between 1603 and 1912. Many of the conventions in the theatre are explained and practically all aspects of kabuki are investigated. The evolution of the playhouse itself, the fascinating interaction between actors and audiences, as well as the development of plays are discussed. There is no other theatre tradition with such elaborate costumes, make-up and variety of acting styles, and these aspects are explained in detail. A brief historical outline of actor prints and their designers, from both Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Osaka, is also included. A large section of the book is dedicated to retelling the 36 popular kabuki plays that are still performed today. Many theatre pieces have their origin in the Nô and puppet theatre traditions: all sources are mentioned in the short introduction to each retelling, which also include{s} detailed notes and references as well as gossip and anecdotes from the world of the theatre. The main scenes of each play and the actors in their leading roles are illustrated by woodblock prints, produced over a period of more than a century. The bibliography provides an up-to-date list of books and articles in Western languages about kabuki. Heroes of the kabuki stage is unique for its extensive index on roles, actors, playwrights, subjects and attributes, which will enable the reader and print collector to find his way in the spectacular world of kabuki.
A fictionalized biography of Okuni, the 17th Century Japanese temple dancer who invented the Kabuki theatre. The novel chronicles her love life and the public's reaction to her innovations, such as cross-dressing, reaction which tended to vary with the political climate of the day.