Author: James R. Brandon
Publisher: Honolulu : University Press of Hawaii, c1978, 1979 printing.
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Author: Satoko Shimazaki
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231540523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
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.

Author: Earle Ernst
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824803193
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Studies the production and psychology of this Japanese drama form and compares its techniques with those of the Western theater

Author: Maki Isaka
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806249
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Kabuki is well known for its exaggerated acting, flamboyant costumes and makeup, and unnatural storylines. The onnagata, usually male actors who perform the roles of women, have been an important aspect of kabuki since its beginnings in the 17th century. In a “labyrinth” of gendering, the practice of men playing women’s roles has affected the manifestations of femininity in Japanese society. In this case study of how gender has been defined and redefined through the centuries, Maki Isaka examines how the onnagata’s theatrical gender “impersonation” has shaped the concept and mechanisms of femininity and gender construction in Japan. The implications of the study go well beyond disciplinary and geographic cloisters.

Author: A.L. Sadler
Publisher: Tuttle Classics
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
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.

Author: Karen Brazell
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231108737
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
The first book of its kind: a collection of the most important genres of Japanese performance--noh, kyogen, kabuki, and puppet theater--in one comprehensive, authoritative volume.

Author: K. Mezur
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403979138
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
This book is a feminist reading of gender performance and construction of the female role players, onnogata, of the Kabuki theatre. It is not limited to a 'theatre arts' focus, rather it is a mapping and close analysis of transformative genders through several historical periods in Japan (the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries).

Author: Barbara E. Thornbury
Publisher: U of M Center For Japanese Studies
ISBN: 0939512114
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
The aim of this book is to show that seemingly illogical double identity of the townsman, Sukeroku, and the samurai, Soga Goro, in the play Sukeroku is a surviving element of what was once a complex and coherent structure based on a traditional performance calendar. To show how the calendar function and what Sukeroku's double identity signifies, the book is divided into two parts. Part One studies the structure of Edo kabuki. The first chapter, which outlines that structure, is based for the most part on writings of the Tokugawa period. The second chapter then looks at the concepts of sekai, "tradition," and shuko, "innovation." Kabuki was the product of material that had become a familiar part of Japanese culture by repeated use and dramatization over long periods of time, starting before kabuki began, and material that was relatively new and was used to transform the older, set material. The double identity in Sukeroku came about as a result of this interplay between what was received by way of traditional and what was added by way of innovation. Part Two considers the significance of the double identity. The author concludes that Sukeroku's double identity gave Edo audiences a hero who was an idealization of the contemporary Tokugawa townsman and at the same time a transformation of a samurai god-hero of the past. The first chapter of Part Two traces the development of Sukeroku's Soga Goro/samurai identity, from its origins in the early dramatic forms of no, kowaka, and ko-joruri, to the representation of Soga Goro in kabuki by Ichikawa Danjuro I. The seconds then looks at the transformation of Soga Gorointo Sukeroku by discussing the origins of Sukeroku and its introductions to Edo kabuki by Ichikawa Danjuro I and his son, Danjuro II, since their work was the basis of all later developments.

Author: Samuel L. Leiter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317478045
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 463

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Book Description
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.

Author: Samuel Leiter
Publisher: Greenwood
ISBN: 0313292884
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Kabuki has been a part of Japanese culture for nearly four centuries. The plays performed today are generally selected from a classic repertoire that gradually ceased to develop once Japan broke the chains of its isolationist policy and began the surge toward Westernization. The plays largely reflect the values of feudal Japan, and they portray a world of noble samurai overcoming evil adversaries, adulterous lovers overcoming their dilemmas through double suicide, parents sacrificing their children in the name of loyalty to a superior, and children giving up their lives for the sake of their parents. Productions typically contain spectacular sets, elaborate costumes, and colorful makeup. Though kabuki is so essential to the heritage of Japan, it still remains largely a beautiful mystery to the West. This reference book is a comprehensive guide to the fascinating world of kabuki. An extensive revision and expansion of the 1979 Kabuki Encyclopedia, this volume is the most comprehensive guide to Japan's kabuki theatre in any language other than Japanese. The present volume includes many new illustrations, a lengthy and detailed index, thorough cross-referencing, greatly expanded descriptions of plays, an extensive bibliography of English-language and Japanese sources, and more than 400 new entries. A major feature is the inclusion of Japanese characters for all main entry terms, titles, and names. The entries are arranged alphabetically, and the volume's appendices include a chronological table of kabuki history, a list of all major or formal play titles, a list of all variant or popular titles, genealogical charts, and a list of all major actors' stage nicknames (yago) currently in use.