Japan and the West: Performing Arts

Outline

Performing Arts
Theatre (puppetry)
(Light) Opera
Dance

Theatre

Japan - traditional and modern
The West - traditional and modern

Traditional Theatre in Japan

Noh
Kabuki
Bunraku

Noh 能

Features of Noh

Use of masks /costume for characterisation
Based around on-stage music
Standardised stage environment
Buddhist preoccupations

Masks

jido (young male), kawazu(frog)/yaseotoko, oumi-onna

Stage

Development of Noh

Developed from other traditional forms (sangaku, sarugaku, dengaku etc)
Initially favoured by Ashikaga shoguns
Kan'ami Kiyotsugu and son Zeami Motokiyo brought Noh to current form by 1450s.
Fūshikaden 風姿花伝 : 序破急 jo-ha-kyu

Jo-ha-kyū Structure

Structure: 序破急 jo-ha-kyū
Jo: Preparation / Beginning
Ha: scattering (pace increases)
Kyū: culmination (speeds towards conclusion)

Concepts also important in other areas of Japanese cultural life, ie. ikebana flower arranging

Roles

Main role (protagonist): shite (シテ・仕手)
Often a character that starts as human but turns out to be a ghost/spirit. Masked.
Secondary role: waki (脇)
Counterpart/foil to shite. No Mask?
Both may have a follower/companion, known as:
- shite-tsure
- waki-tsure
Musicians: flute, drums (hayashi)
Chorus: 6-8 singers (jiutai)

"Funabenkei"

Kabuki

Origins and Development

Traditionally begins in 1603, Kyoto
Izumo no Okuni perform a 'new style' of dance
1629: women and boys gradually banned from performing
1670s-1840: 'Golden Age' of kabuki

Kabuki-za

New Kabuki-za

Fukuchi Gen'ichiro

Morita-za

Already had a long history of putting on kabuki plays.

Had been rebuilt several times before becoming a 'western-style' theatre when rebuilt in 1872.

President Ulysses S. Grant

Ended 1879 world tour in Tokyo
Visited the Shintomi-za
Play: Gosannen Oshu Gunki
Transposed US Civil War (1861-5) to medieval Japan
Grant -> Minamoto no Yoshiie
Lee -> Kiyohara no Takehira

1886: Engeki Kairyo-kai

Theatre Improvement Society

Improve lighting (candles -> electricity)
Encourage 'realistic' acting
Get rid of
- onnagata
- koken(visible stage hands) etc.
again for reasons of 'realism'

Yūraku-za, 1908

Bunraku

Traditional Theatre in 'the West'

Theatres

'In the round'
Proscenium Arch

Mystery Plays

"The Globe"

"Proscenium Arch"

Japan meets 'the West'

Kawatake Mokuami
- zan-giri mono
- "cropped-hair" kabuki
1885: Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" adapted for kabuki
By 1900 kabuki had given up on westernizing and returned to its artistic traditions...

Shinpa ("New wave")

Amateur kabuki-style productions often base on western models, started in Osaka 1888.
Ii Yoho - Julius Caesar 1901
Hanafusa Ryugai - An Enemy of the People (Ibsen) 1902

Kawakami Otojiro & Sadayakko (川上貞奴) adapted various bits of Shakespeare and did kabuki-like performances in the US and Europe 1899-1901
1908: Founded acting school for women

Sadayakko (1871-1946)

"Sada Yacco"

Shingeki

Literary Art Society (Bungei Kyokai)
Wrote original works, set up acting school in 1907
Disbanded 1913
Free Theatre (Jiyu Gekijo)
Reworked western plays with kabuki actors (Ibsen, Gorky)
Disbanded 1909

Tsukiji Little Theatre

Founded in 1924 by Hijikata Yoshi (1898-1959)

Abandoned Kabuki style altogether.

Staged 'western' plays until 1926 when it put on En; the Ascetic by Tsuboichi Shoyo, one of the first 'modern' plays by a Japanese playwright.

Largest influence on postwar modern Japanese theatre.

Musical Theatre

"Madame Butterfly"

CHAPTER I. THE MYSTERIOUS LAND

At dawn we beheld Japan.

Precisely at the foretold moment the mysterious land arose before us, afar off, like a black dot in the vast sea, which for so many days had been but a blank space.

At first we saw nothing by the rays of the rising sun but a series of tiny pink-tipped heights (the Fukai Islands). Soon, however, appeared all along the horizon, like a misty veil over the waters, Japan itself; and little by little, out of the dense shadow, arose the sharp, opaque outlines of the Nagasaki mountains.

Mme. Chysanthéme

1887: Pierre Loti - 'biographical' novel about a French sailor who travels to Japan

Mme. Butterfly (novel)

1898: John Luther Long combines Loti's book with other stories

Mme. Butterfly (play)

1900: David Belasco turns Long's novel into a play - Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan

Mme Butterfly

Puccini saw Belasco's play and wrote Mme Butterfly.
Opened at La Scala in Milan in 1904.
Initially - a bit of a rush job - it was not so popular but Puccini rewrote parts and it is now one of the most regularly performed operas in the world.

Un bel di vedremo

"Cio-Cio-San"

Miura Tamaki

1884 – 1946

Performed Cio-Cio-San in various productions of Mme Butterfly around the US and Europe 1915-1932

The Mikado

Savoy Opera

Comic operettas produced by the D'Oyly-Carte theatre company in the late c19.

Libretto: W.S. Gilbert

Music: Arthur Sullivan

Often using foreign settings where absurdity can be taken to absurd conclusions.

The Town of Titipu

Set in Japan but actually a satire manners and customs in Britain

The Mikado of Japan
Nanki-Poo, His Son, disguised as a wandering minstrel and in love with Yum-Yum
Ko-Ko, The Lord High Executioner of Titipu
Pooh-Bah, Lord High Everything Else
Pish-Tush, A Noble Lord
Go-To, A Noble Lord
Yum-Yum, A Ward of Ko-Ko
Pitti-Sing, A Ward of Ko-Ko
Peep-Bo, A Ward of Ko-Ko
Katisha, An Elderly lady, in love with Nanki-Poo