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Kabuki from the Outside
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2021
Translated by
Extract
One recently published book on Kabuki is called Kabuki: The Popular Theatre. But today Kabuki supports its claim to popularity mainly with body counts: each year Kabuki audiences are six times larger than those for all modern theatre (Shingeki) productions combined. Kabuki's devotees claim that Kabuki audiences enjoy and appreciate what they see, while Shingeki's adherents are firmly convinced that they do not. Whatever the case, we can be sure that large numbers of people do not go spontaneously to a Kabuki theatre for a good night's entertainment, that Kabuki is not supported by revenue from individual ticket sales, and that the scions of Kabuki themselves are worried that their audiences do not understand what goes on onstage.
In 1969 Tokyo's National Theatre raised the price of tickets sold at the box office from 1,800 yen ($5.00) to 2,000 yen ($5.56) while at the same time giving considerable discounts, sometimes more than fifty percent, to package audiences.
- Type
- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © 1971 The Drama Review
References
1 Kaitaro, Tsuno, “Biwa and Beatles: An Invitation to Modern Japanese Theatre,” Concerned Theatre Japan 1969), October, pp. 12–17.Google Scholar
2 Translated by as Keenc, Donald, The Girl from Hakata, or Love at Sea in Major Plays of Chikamatsu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961).Google Scholar
3 Tsuruya Namboku IV (1755-1829), one of the greatest Kabuki playwrights and a master of suspense, wrote chilling ghost plays dealing with the cruel, the demented, and the supernatural.—Trans.
4 Marubomnono refers to Kabuki plays originally written to be read by a chanter and performed by puppets; because puppets do not have an actor's physical limitations, playwrights wrote extraordinarily demanding plays which, when adapted for Kabuki performance, required superhuman (CMS.—Trans.
5 The Horyuji, a Buddhist monastery in the Nara prefecture near Kyoto, is the oldest existing wooden structure in the world, dating from 607 A.D.; in 1949 a fire swept through the monastery's central structure, the Kondo, or Golden Sanctuary, gutting its interior and destroying a priceless fresco of the goddess Kannon.—Trans.