James R. Brandon

Five Classic Plays (Accepted Into the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works,)

Kabuki

How do classical, highly codified theatre arts retain the interest of today's audiences and how do they grow and respond to their changing circumstances? The eight essays presented here examine the contemporary relevance and significance of the "classic" No and Kyogen theatre to Japan and the West. They explore the theatrical experience from many perspectives--those of theatre, music, dance, art, literature, linguistics, philosophy, religion, history and sociology.

No and Kyogen in the Contemporary World

Samuel L. Leiter

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.

Villainy and Vengeance, 1773-1799

Kabuki Plays on Stage. Volume 2

¿Perhaps the best English-language puppetry book in years.¿ ¿Library Journal ¿Accessible and unexpectedly involving ... an essential book for anyone seriously interested in wayang.¿ ¿

Three Javanese Shadow Plays

On Thrones of Gold

This first volume in a series collecting kabuki play translations draws on new research in kabuki performance and history and presents translations of traditional plays by 22 scholars ranging from the eminent to emerging. Includes over two dozen playwrights and 51 plays representing a range of history or period plays (judaimono), domestic plays (sewamono), and dance pieces (shosagoto or buyo-geki). Plays were selected to show the widest array of kabuki dramaturgy from the Genroku era to the turn of the 20th century. Fine color and b&w illustrations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Brilliance and Bravado, 1697-1766

Kabuki Plays on Stage. Volume 1

William P. Malm

Donald Howard Shively

East-West Culture Learning Institute

Its Acting, Music, and Historical Context

Studies in Kabuki

University of Hawaii Press

Kabuki Plays on Stage: Darkness and desire, 1804-1864

Edward A. Langhans

Joel Trapido

An International Dictionary of Theatre Language

Darkness and Desire, 1804-1864, is the third volume in a monumental new series-the first collection of kabuki play translations to be published in nearly a quarter of a century. Fifty-one plays, published in four volumes, vividly trace kabuki's changing relations to Japanese society during the premodern era. The fourteen plays translated in Volume 3, Darkness and Desire, 1804-1864, mark an extreme point in the development of kabuki dramaturgy. The plays are remarkable, even within kabuki, for their intense theatricality, gutsy individualism of character, cold-blooded and ferocious violence, realism pushed into fantasy and grotesquery, novelty for its own sake, sexual aggressiveness, and assertion of female will. The plays depict a society in extremis, the end of an era, a time often marked by unmitigated darkness and desire.

Darkness and Desire, 1804-1864

Kabuki Plays On Stage. Volume 3

Brandon's Guide to Theater in Asia

Martin Banham

A comprehensive and authoritative single-volume reference work on the theatre arts of Asia-Oceania. Nine expert scholars provide entries on performance in twenty countries from Pakistan in the west, through India and Southeast Asia to China, Japan and Korea in the east. An introductory pan-Asian essay explores basic themes - they include ritual, dance, puppetry, training, performance and masks. The national entries concentrate on the historical development of theatre in each country, followed by entries on the major theatre forms, and articles on playwrights, actors and directors. The entries are accompanied by rare photographs and helpful reading lists.

The Cambridge Guide to Asian Theatre

According to a myth constructed after Japan's surrender to the Allied Forces in 1945, kabuki was a pure, classical art form with no real place in modern Japanese society. Drawing extensively from Japanese sources, Brandon shows that kabuki played an important role in Japan's Fifteen-Year Sacred War.

1931-1945

Kabuki's Forgotten War

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.

Eighteen Plays on Stage

Masterpieces of Kabuki

Includes information about playwrights, important actors and directors, theaters, companies, movements, events, technology, and other aspects of theater.

James R. Brandon

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