Theatre of Japan
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Traditional Japanese theatre includes kabuki, noh and bunraku.
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[edit] Traditional form of theatre
There are four major forms of traditional Japanese theatre that are famous around the world. These are Noh, Kyogen, Kabuki, and Bunraku, or puppet theatre.
[edit] Noh and Kyogen
The earliest existing Kyogen scripts date from the 300s. Kyogen was used as an intermission between Noh acts — it linked the theme of the Noh play with the modern world by means of farce and slapstick. Unlike Noh, the performers of Kyogen do not wear masks, unless their role calls for physical transformation.
Both men and women were allowed to perform Kyogen until 450.
[edit] Kabuki
The most well-known form of Japanese theatre is Kabuki. Perhaps its fame comes from the wild costumes and swordfights, which used real swords until the 1680s. Kabuki grew out of opposition to Noh — they wanted to shock the audience with more lively and timely stories. The first performance was in 1603.
Like Noh, however, over time Kabuki became not just performing in a new way, but a stylized art to be performed only a certain way.
As a matter of interest, the popular Gekidan Shinkansen, a theatrical troupe based in Tokyo today, insists it follows pure kabuki tradition by performing historical roles in a modern, noisy, and outlandish way — to shock the audience as kabuki intended, if you will. Whether or not they are kabuki, however, remains a matter of debate and personal opinion.
[edit] Bunraku
Puppets and Bunraku were used in Japanese theatre as early as the noh plays. Medieval records record the use of puppets actually in Noh plays. Puppets are three to four foot tall dolls that are manipulated by puppeteers in full view of the audience. The puppeteers controlling the legs and hands are dressed entirely in black, while the head puppeteer is wearing colorful clothing. Music and chanting is a popular convention of bunraku, and the shamisen player is usually considered to be the leader of the production.
In modern media, a readily accessible example of bunraku is in Kitano Takeshi's 2002 movie, Dolls.
[edit] Modern theatre
Japanese modern drama in the early twentieth century, the 1910s, consisted of Shingeki (experimental Western-style theater), which employed naturalistic acting and contemporary themes in contrast to the stylized conventions of Kabuki and Noh.
In the postwar period, there was a phenomenal growth in creative new dramatic works, which introduced fresh aesthetic concepts that revolutionized the orthodox modern theater. Challenging the realistic, psychological drama focused on "tragic historical progress" of the Western-derived shingeki, young playwrights broke with such accepted tenets as conventional stage space, placing their action in tents, streets, and open areas and, at the extreme, in scenes played out all over Tokyo.
Plots became increasingly complex, with play-within-a-play sequences, moving rapidly back and forth in time, and intermingling reality with fantasy. Dramatic structure was fragmented, with the focus on the performer, who often used a variety of masks to reflect different personae.
Playwrights returned to common stage devices perfected in Noh and Kabuki to project their ideas, such as employing a narrator, who could also use English for international audiences. Major playwrights in the 1980s were Kara Joro, Shimizu Kunio, and Betsuyaku Minoru, all closely connected to specific companies. In the 1980s, stagecraft was refined into a more sophisticated, complex format than in the earlier postwar experiments but lacked their bold critical spirit.
Tadashi Suzuki developed a unique method of performer training which integrated avant-garde concepts with classical Noh and Kabuki devices, an approach that became a major creative force in Japanese and international theater in the 1980s. Another highly original East-West fusion occurred in the inspired production Nastasya, taken from Dostoevsky's The Idiot, in which Bando Tamasaburo, a famed Kabuki onnagata (female impersonator), played the roles of both the prince and his fiancée.
[edit] Sho-Gekijo
The 1980's also encouraged the creation of the Sho-Gekijo, or literally, little theatre. This usually meant amateur theatrical troupes making plays designed to be seen by anyone and everyone — not necessarily as meaningful in nature as they were simply entertaining.
Some of the more philosophical playwrights and directors of that time which are still active today are Noda Hideki, Kogami Shoji and Keralino Sandorovich (a pen name for a Japanese playwright).
Popular sho-gekijo theatrical troupes include Nylon 100, Gekidan Shinkansen, Tokyo Sunshine Boys, and Halaholo Shangrila.
[edit] Western plays in Japan
Many Western plays, from those of the Ancient Greek theatre to William Shakespeare and from those of Fyodor Dostoevsky to Samuel Beckett, are performed in Tokyo. An incredible number of performances, perhaps as many as 3,000, are given each year, making Tokyo one of the world's leading theatrical centers.
The opening of the replica of the Globe Theatre was celebrated by importing an entire British company to perform all of Shakespeare's historical plays, while other Tokyo theaters produced other Shakespearean plays including various new interpretations of Hamlet and King Lear. The Globe Theatre, located in Shin-Ōkubo in Tokyo, now belongs mostly to Johnny's Entertainment and the promotion of pop idols in the acting field.
Yukio Ninagawa is an internationally known Japanese director and playwright who often turns to elements of Shakespeare for inspiration. In 1995 he performed the "Shakespeare Tenpo 12Nen", an interpretation of the wildly popular British theatre Shakespeare Condensed: all of Shakespeare's plays in two hours. Famous actors such as Natsuki Mari and Karasawa Toshiaki were involved.
[edit] References
- This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain. — Japan
[edit] External links
- Japan Cultural Profile - national cultural portal for Japan created by Visiting Arts/Japan Foundation
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