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This article is an overview of traditional and modern Japanese theatre. Traditional Japanese theatre is among the oldest theatre traditions in the world. Traditional theatre includes Noh, a spiritual drama, and its comic accompaniment ;
kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance- drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought ...
, a dance and music theatrical tradition; , puppetry; and , a spoken drama. Modern Japanese theatre includes (experimental Western-style theatre), shinpa (new school theatre) and (little theatre). In addition, there are many classical western plays and musical adaptations of popular television shows and movies that are produced in Japan.


Traditional forms of theatre


Noh and

Noh and theatre traditions are among the oldest continuous theatre traditions in the world. The earliest existing scripts date from the 15th century. Noh was a spiritual drama, combining symbolism from
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
and
Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shint ...
and focusing on tales with mythic significance. , its comic partner, served as a link between the theological themes of the Noh play with the pedestrian world by use of theatrical farce and slapstick. Noh theatre was generally performed for the elite aristocratic class, but there were occasions where Noh was also performed for common audiences. Noh and plays were performed together in series of nine, alternating between the two styles, with short plays acting as interludes between the lengthy Noh. Both men and women were allowed to perform until 1430.


Kabuki

Kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance- drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought ...
combines music, drama, and dance, often using period-accurate costumes and intense choreography. Types of kabuki play include (historical plays) and ("contemporary" plays), as well as ("dance-drama") plays primarily focused around set dance pieces. Styles of kabuki performance include the ("rough style") and ("female style") styles. Kabuki developed out of opposition to the staid traditions of Noh theatre, a form of entertainment primarily restricted to the upper classes. Traditionally,
Izumo no Okuni was a Japanese shrine maiden who is believed to have invented the theatrical art form of kabuki. She is thought to have begun performing her new art style of (lit., "the art of singing and dancing") theatre in the dry riverbed of the Kamo Ri ...
is considered to have performed the first kabuki play on the dried-up banks of the Kamo River in
Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...
in 1603. Like Noh, however, over time, kabuki developed heavily into a set art form, with importance given to preserving the integrity of certain plays, down to using the same costume designs used several centuries ago.


began in the 16th century. Puppets and were used in Japanese theatre as early as the Noh plays.
Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
records prove the use of puppets in Noh plays too. The puppets were -tall, and the dolls were manipulated by puppeteers in full view of the audience. The puppeteers controlling the legs and hands of the puppets are dressed entirely in black, while the head puppeteer in contrast wears a colourful costume. Music and chanting is a popular convention of , and the player is usually considered to be the leader of the production. The player also has the shortest hair.


was a popular form of spoken theatre in the
Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...
. The term is the shortened form of . Towards the end of the Edo period, there were several hundred theatres, about one per . The entrance fee, the was small. A number of variants existed: * * * * * * * *


Modern theatre

Japanese modern drama in the early 20th century consisted of (experimental Western-style theatre), which employed naturalistic acting and contemporary themes in contrast to the stylized conventions of kabuki and Noh. Hōgetsu Shimamura and
Kaoru Osanai was a Japanese theater director, playwright, and actor central in the development of modern Japanese theater. Biography Kaoru Osanai was born on July 26, 1881, in Hiroshima, the second son of Director of Hiroshima Army Garrison Hospital, Takesh ...
were two figures influential in the development of . In the post-war period, there was a phenomenal growth in creative new dramatic works, which introduced fresh aesthetic concepts that revolutionized the orthodox modern theatre. Challenging the realistic, psychological drama focused on "tragic historical progress" of the Western-derived , young playwrights broke with such accepted tenets as conventional stage space, placing their action in tents, streets, and open areas located 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 Juro,
Shimizu Kunio (17 November 1936 – 15 April 2021 ) was a Japanese playwright. Niigata, Niigata, Niigata is his hometown, which is located on the Japan Sea. At Tama University of Fine Arts Shimizu was a professor working in the Moving Images and Performing Arts ...
, and Betsuyaku Minoru, all closely connected to specific
companies A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared go ...
. In contrast, the fiercely independent
Murai Shimako was a Japanese playwright. She was born in Hiroshima, but was not in the city on the day of the atomic bombings. She lost many friends in the bombing, and her profound sense of guilt led her to devote most of her life to producing plays connecte ...
who won awards throughout the world for her numerous works focusing on the
Hiroshima bombing The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...
, performed plays with only one or two actresses. In the 1980s, Japanese
stagecraft Stagecraft is a technical aspect of theatrical, film, and video production. It includes constructing and rigging scenery; hanging and focusing of lighting; design and procurement of costumes; make-up; stage management; audio engineering; a ...
evolved into a more refined into a more sophisticated and complex format than earlier postwar experiments but lacked their bold critical spirit. In this time period, women began to run their own theater companies such as Kishida Rio, Kisaragi Koharu, Nagai Ai, and Watanabe Eriko.
Tadashi Suzuki is a Japanese avant-garde theatre director, writer, and philosopher. He is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT), and organizer of Japan’s first international theatre festival (Toga Festival). With American director A ...
developed a unique method of performer training which integrated
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...
concepts with classical Noh and kabuki techniques, an approach that became a major creative force in Japanese and international theatre in the 1980s. Another highly original east–west fusion occurred in the inspired production Nastasya, adapted from Dostoevsky's ''
The Idiot ''The Idiot'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Идиот, Idiót) is a novel by the 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published serially in the journal ''The Russian Messenger'' in 1868–69. The title is an ...
'', in which
Bando Tamasaburo Bando ( my, ဗန်တို, ) is a defensive unarmed martial art from Myanmar. Bando is sometimes mistakenly used as a generic word for all Burmese martial arts, but it is only one martial art; Burmese fighting systems collectively are refe ...
, a famed kabuki (female impersonator), played the roles of both the prince and his fiancée.


is a modern form of theatre. It earned the name (literally meaning "new school") to contrast it from ("old school" or kabuki) due its more contemporary and realistic stories. With the success of the Seibidan troupe, however, theater ended up with a form that was closer to kabuki than to the later because of its continued use of and off-stage music. As a theatrical form, it was most successful in the early 1900s as the works of novelists such as Kyōka Izumi, Kōyō Ozaki, and Roka Tokutomi were adapted for the stage. With the introduction of cinema in Japan, became one of the first film genres in opposition again to films, as many films were based on plays.


The 1980s also encouraged the creation of the , 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 are Noda Hideki and Shōji Kōkami. Popular theatrical troupes include Nylon 100, Gekidan Shinkansen,
Tokyo Sunshine Boys The is a Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatrical troupe that was active from 1983 until about 1994. Since it disbanded almost all of its members have continued acting on theatre and in film. History The group was originally designed by screenwriter ...
, and Halaholo Shangrila. Recently, new generation of artists who are labelled as the "Generation of the Lost Decade" or the "Generation of 2000s" have emerged. Principal artists among this generation are:
Toshiki Okada is a Japanese playwright, theater director, novelist, and founder of the theatrical company chelfitsch. He is known for "his use of hyper-colloquial Japanese and his unique choreography."Program for ''Five Days in March'', On the Boards (Seattle ...
, Shiro Maeda, Kuro Tanino, Daisuke Miura, Tomohiro Maekawa and so on.


Western plays in Japan

Many classics of the western canon from
Ancient Greek theatre Ancient Greek theatre was a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and religious place during this period, was its centre, where the theatre w ...
,
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, Fyodor Dostoevsky to
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and Tragicomedy, tr ...
are performed in Tokyo today. A large 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 The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas Brend and inherited by his son, Nicholas Brend, and ...
was celebrated by importing an entire British company to perform all of Shakespeare's historical plays, while other Tokyo theatres produced other Shakespearean plays including various new interpretations of ''
Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' and ''
King Lear ''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane a ...
''. The Globe Theatre, located in Shin-Ōkubo in Tokyo, now belongs mostly to
Johnny's Entertainment is a Japanese talent agency, formed by Johnny Kitagawa in 1962, which trains and promotes groups of male entertainers known as . History 1962–1989 In 1962, Kitagawa launched his first group, Johnnys. In its early days, Kitagawa's agency rente ...
and the promotion of pop idols in the acting field.
Yukio Ninagawa was a Japanese theatre director, actor and film director, particularly known for his Japanese language productions of Shakespeare plays and Greek tragedies. He directed eight distinct renditions of ''Hamlet.'' Ninagawa was also emeritus of the ...
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 Karawa Toshiaki were involved.


Popular entertainment in Japan


Theatrical revues

Outside of traditional theatrical entertainment, theatrical revues began to be recognized as popular entertainment in Japan during the early 1900s. Originating in the West, the light theatrical entertainment offered by theatrical revues inspired the creation of famed Japanese revue companies such as the
Takarazuka Revue The is a Japanese all-female musical theatre troupe based in Takarazuka, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Women play all roles in lavish, Broadway-style productions of Western-style musicals and stories adapted from films, novels, manga, and Jap ...
, founded by Ichizō Kobayashi in 1914, with a failed swimming pool in Takarazuka turned into a theatre. Following the rise of Western and European culture influencing Japanese social, political, and economic culture, Japan's entertainment culture was additionally influenced. Within the popular entertainment of the Takarazuka Revue Company, its repertoire consisted of Euro-Western performance and musical styles alongside traditional Japanese performance elements. This would consist of Western and European stories (such as ''The Rose of Versailles''), Western musical arrangements (such as ''CHICAGO''), as well as the inclusion of traditional Japanese stories and music.


2.5D musical

2.5D musicals are stage adaptations of anime, manga, and video game series. While stage adaptations of anime and manga have existed since the 1970s, they gained popularity around the 2000s through '' Musical: The Prince of Tennis''. Modern 2.5D musicals use
projection mapping Projection mapping, similar to video mapping and spatial augmented reality, is a projection technique used to turn objects, often irregularly shaped, into display surfaces for video projection. The objects may be complex industrial landscapes, s ...
for backgrounds and special effects.


See also

*
Culture of Japan The culture of Japan has changed greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia and other regions of the world. Historical overview The ances ...
*
Takarazuka Revue The is a Japanese all-female musical theatre troupe based in Takarazuka, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Women play all roles in lavish, Broadway-style productions of Western-style musicals and stories adapted from films, novels, manga, and Jap ...
*
GEAR A gear is a rotating circular machine part having cut teeth or, in the case of a cogwheel or gearwheel, inserted teeth (called ''cogs''), which mesh with another (compatible) toothed part to transmit (convert) torque and speed. The basic ...
, the first unlimited-run show in Japan with original contents. * *
Performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perfo ...


References

*  �
Japan


External links


Japan Cultural Profile
– national cultural portal for Japan created by Visiting Arts/Japan Foundation {{DEFAULTSORT:Theatre Of Japan
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
Japanese culture Performing arts in Japan *