Japanese Theatre
12The dissertation The Bunraku Puppet Theatre since 1945 . 1964: Changes in Administration and Organization, by Juliiiniie K. Boyd includes important information about the period Ofl formation of the Bunraku Kyökai.
CHAPTER IX
THE MODERN THEATRE: SHIMPA
Origins of the Shimpa Movement: Sudö Sadanori
The word shimpageki means "new school drama" and is used (mostly in its abbreviated form shimpa) to designate a ipecific form of theatre, the first to develop outside the kabuki world after the Meiji Restoration as an attempt to modernize and westernize Japan's drama. The name began to appear in the newspapers starting from the very first years of our century to distinguish the drama of the "new school" from that of the "old school" (kyuha), that is, of kabuki.1
It was unavoidable that the theatre would join the general movement of change that swept Japan after the opening of the country to western influence. The efforts of the kabuki and bunraku professionals to modernize their art produced only sporadic results of short duration, and certainly did not transform those genres into forms of westernized spoken theatre. They instead generated today's kabuki and bunraku, which present a change from the pre-Meiji outlook something like that accomplished in the performances of many operas in the West in which music, libretto, and basic acting style have remained much the same, while modern technical resources have been incorporated.
The lack of participation by professional actors in the creation of a modern theatre resulted in amateurism and low levels of acting skills in the courageous pioneers. Not much could be expected from the first groups that dared to present themselves to the public without acting training and without a clear idea of what a modern style should look like; this was largely because the only experience of theatrical performance
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in Japan was that of the traditional performing arts, and dlrPOl experience of western theatre was not yet available to lh| young amateurs.
Despite the lack of professionalism and a model for modernization, one thing was very clear in the mind of SudA j Sadanori (1867-1907), who is considered the founder of shimpa: theatre was to be an instrument of political \ propaganda against the conservative regime.
The first expressions of this goal occurred in conjunction with a tense political situation. In 1884 the conservaiive government dissolved the major opposition force, the Liberal Party (Jiyuto), of which Sudo was a militant member, and forbade all political rallies. A group mostly made up of young militants decided to continue the fight against the government with the means left at their disposal, such as lecturei, newspaper articles, and, eventually, the theatre. These youfl| I people called themselves soshi, a word that means both "courageous young man" and "political bully" or "henchman," Several soshi were lawless ruffians, who did not shy away I from violent revolutionary actions, and often got into trouble with the police. Their political aims of freedom werf 1 unfocused, and their unrest was expressed primarily as g j manifestation of a sense of frustration with the conservative j leadership, rather than as the execution of a clear and systematic plan of action.
A group of soshi came together under Sadanori'i j leadership and formed the Dainippon Geigeki Kyofukai (Great Japan Society for the Reformation of the Theatre), one of the many "improvement societies" born in the middle eighties to I promote the westernization of some aspect of life or culture, I this time, however, with the aim of using theatre for the purpose of liberal political opposition against the conservative ] government. The first performance took place in Osaka in I December 1888.
Rather than epoch-making events, this and similar performances were generally considered by contemporaries as a kind of a curiosity, an odd attempt by amateurs to present theatre outside the monopoly of the kabuki establishment. Many failed to recognize until much later the importance of a movement that broke the ice in the process of thrusting Japan into the stream of contemporary spoken drama, introduced new j theatre customs such as darkened auditoriums and elaborate I
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iIhrc lighting, added the new dramatic subject of social and political struggle, re-introduced women to the stage, and, above «11, showed the possibility of surviving outside the traditional ill.-.iiu- monopoly.
The founder of shimpa, Sudo Sadanori—a Kyoto policeman turned journalist, a soshi, and eventually a full time actor—spent twenty years of his short life mostly touring the provinces, but reaping only scattered success in the big cities where he could not last long in competition with both the professional kabuki theatre and the offspring of his own reform, such as the more aggressive and better organized troupe of Kawakami Otojiro. Sudo died at forty, in the dressing room of a Kobe theatre. On the memorial erected in his honor in 1937 in the cemetery of the Tennoji temple of Osaka an inscription describes him as the "father of the new theatre."
Kawakami Otojiro
If Sudo was the first to show the possibility of survival outside the kabuki world, Kawakami Otojiro (1864-1911) succeeded in proving much more: that stardom and financial reward independent from kabuki were possible even for a man of obscure origins without any family connections with the professional theatre world.
Kawakami's life reads like a fast-paced adventure novel, a sequence of continuous changes, failures, new enterprises, and a series of "firsts" in the Japanese theatre world.2 Though he never achieved greatness in the quality of his performances as an actor, his role as a catalyst in the process of forming Japan's new theatre was unique. Kawakami's family had served for generations as official purveyors under the feudal lords of Hakata in Kyushu. He left home at fourteen and started a series of diverse experiences: among others, as an apprentice in a Buddhist temple, as a pupil of the famous scholar Fukuzawa Yukichi at Keio University, as a policeman, and as a political propagandist. In 1887, he was on stage with kabuki actors in Kyoto, his role being to improvise outside the curtain at those points where the text broke off. In 1888, he became the disciple of a famous Osaka rakugo storyteller, Katsura Bun'nosuke, and used his new skill to put together his original
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Oppekepe bushi, a satirical ballad sung to a very populur luitt composed by Katsura T5bei, a storyteller of the same sellout, The ballad's onomatopoeic name derived from the sound of IM trumpet which opened its refrain. The ballad made Kawitkuml famous three years later, when he performed in Tokyo in ihvi with his new company formed in imitation of Sudo's sHim theatre. He appeared at the Nakamura-za in plays not woflfcv remembering, gaining his success because of his entr'MM performance of the Okkepeke bushi, which he sang » dashing like a swashbuckler in front of a golden screen with | Japanese flag in his hand. His success was so great that even the major kabuki stars went to see him.
Kawakami is responsible for the introduction of such "sensations" from the West as the changing of scenery || darkness, the new system of lighting the stage while t h■ orchestra is darkened, and the "authentic reportage" drama in which in a relatively realistic way he presented war episodft from the Chinese campaign of 1894/95. His war plays ware enormously successful, gaining a better public reception than the corresponding war plays done by kabuki actors. To enhance the patriotic atmosphere he had soldiers and sailors fight lit formal uniform, and instructed the audience to bow when the name of the Emperor was mentioned. He traveled to Korea M inspect the front-line and then produced his most successful play, Kawakami Otojiro senchi kembunki (Kawakami Otojlrfl] Reporting from the Battle Field, 1894) in which he played ! himself in the role of a reporter at the front line witnessing the valiant deeds of the Japanese heroes. For the first time, shimpa won over kabuki, and for the first time the moil important kabuki stage, Tokyo's Kabuki-za, was at shimpa'% disposal.
Kawakami was also the first to present Japanese theatrt abroad. He toured with his company to America, England, France, Germany, and Russia. As a consequence of hit experiences abroad Kawakami introduced western-style ticket! ] and shortened the duration of his shows. He pioneered I childrens' theatre in 1903. Also in 1903 he began the presentation of western masterpieces: he began by staging his adaptation of Othello, and followed it between 1903 and 1906 with Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, and plays by Maeterlinck and Sardou.
Shimpa
Contemporary sources agree in judging rather harshly the quality of Kawakami's performances. It is clear that his forte was sensationalism, not art. In his war plays the secret of his ■uccess was a rhetorical, sentimental appeal to patriotism, and in ostentatious, one-sided glorification of valiant Japanese heroes. Photographs of the time show cheap operetta-like sets and exaggerated, melodramatic gestures. In the play Itagaki-a mi sonan jikki (The True Story of Itagaki's Misfortunes, 1891) during the scene of the attempted murder of the famous liberal politician, Itagaki Taisuke, he had actors in police uniforms suddenly appear on the hanamichi, so that the audience momentarily believed in a real intervention by the police. His presentation of western masterpieces could hardly give an idea of the originals; he often relied on western curiosities such as introducing Hamlet by having him make a sensational entrance on a bicycle.
It is doubtful whether the type of Japanese theatre shown by Kawakami abroad was a service to the cause of International exchange. The purpose of his foreign trip originally had been to study the western theatre, not to perform. An enterprising theatre manager in San Francisco, however, induced him to go on the stage with his fellow actors. Part of the mixed success was due to his wife, Kawakami Sadayakko (1872-1946), who was not an actress, but, before her marriage, had been a professionally trained, high class geisha. She was therefore capable of fascinating European audiences who had never seen the live performance of a geisha?
It is clear that Kawakami was successful both in Japan and abroad as long as he could capitalize on spectacular or emotional elements which did not require real acting skills. Their very lack of acting skills, however, gave to the performances of his troupe a freshness unknown to the stereotyped traditional models. While most kabuki plays repeated themes that were becoming increasingly obsolete, Kawakami's presentations exploited the hottest issues of the day. While the language of kabuki was sounding more and more like something from the past, Kawakami's colloquialisms reflected the latest, rapidly changing expressions of "modernized" society. Kawakami did not abolish the convention of female impersonation in shimpa, but selectively used actresses for certain female roles, thereby   initiating a new
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tradition of female stars on the Japanese stage. In ll)0H lie established the first modern school for actresses, the Teikoil Joyu Yoseijo (Imperial Actresses School), which was headed M his wife Sadayakko. His last enterprise was the building of ft new theatre, the Teikokuza, in Osaka, which he hoped wouli become the center for the "true theatre." Shortly after opening the new house in 1911 he died, aged forty-seven.
Seibikan and Other Companies
During Kawakami's time, realization of the need If improve the quality of acting and the standards of the pluvi was at the root of efforts by several of the most serious thcutie reformers. Several groups were formed, those especially worthy of mention being the Seibikan, the Seibidan, the Isaml* engeki, and the Hongoza.
The Seibikan was short-lived; it performed only onf j program in Tokyo in 1891. It was the brainchild of Yodft Gakkai (1833-1909), a scholar and theatre critic who gave to the company the purpose of high artistic ideals exclusive of political concerns. It was the Seibikan who introduced young II Yoho (1871-1932), an actor who was to become very famous ftl) a shimpa star for decades; the troupe also was the first to break the ban on theatrical companies comprising both men and women.
The Seibidan also was a short-lived effort to stress quality over sensationalism. It was founded in 1896 by an ex-member of Kawakami's troupe, Takada Minoru (1871-1916), who it credited, with such collaborators as Kitamura Rokuro (1871-1961) with having set the standards for the best achievement! of shimpa. In 1898 the name Seibidan disappeared from the records, but Takada's teaching about the importance of ikl (breathing) and his exemplary dedication to the art of acting as a technique of realistic expression had great importance in the process of finding a serious new professionalism within shimpa. Takada died at forty-six, in 1915. Kitamura, an offshoot of the Seibidan, founded a school of acting which continued the same methods.
The Isami-engeki was formed in 1895 by the actors Ii Y5ho, Sato Toshizo (1869-1945), and Mizuno Yoshimi (1863-1928; the name I-Sa-Mi was formed with the initial syllable of
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• - *i actor's name). Ii was the most popular among the shimpa •otors. A very handsome and talented performer, Ii is also remembered for his serious effort to rediscover for the new theatre treasures of traditional playwriting or new interpretations of Japanese legends as presented by important contemporary authors. Famous are his cycle of eight plays, (hikamatsu kenkyu-geki (Research Plays on Chikamatsu), and Tamakushige futari Urashima, novelist Mori Ogai's philosophical adaptation of the Urashima Taro legend. The contribution of such talented modern writers as Mori Ogai (1862-1922), and the dramatization of famous contemporary tragic novels such as Tokutomi Roka's Hototogisu (The Cuckoo) and Ozaki Koyo's Konjiki yasha (A Demon of Gold) provided the shimpa stage with a new repertory representative of contemporary Japanese culture, quite different from whatever Kawakami had been dressing up to display his ihowmanship.
The Golden Age of Shimpa
The first decade of the twentieth century was a period of prosperity and busy activity for shimpa. The death of the two major kabuki stars Kikugoro and Danjuro in 1903 had left a great vacuum in the Tokyo theatre. The beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 inspired shimpa to revive the genre of war plays which had been extremely well received at the time of the Sino-Japanese War. The success of war plays by different shimpa groups was such that an invitation was extended to kabuki actors to produce one of them jointly. The invitation was not accepted, but kabuki actors did themselves produce a shimpa war play—a sign of the new importance reached by shimpa on the Tokyo scene. Shimpa was taking a vigorous leadership in the professional theatre world not only by choosing timely themes for its plays (war plays and plays adapted from successful novels and newspaper serials), but also because of the input of serious and well trained actors such as Ii and the female impersonator Kawai Takeo, son of a kabuki actor and therefore belonging by birth to the traditional theatre establishment. This "great age" of shimpa saw times in which shimpa plays were simultaneously   presented at three
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Skimpa
different Tokyo theatres: a famous example is that of the thiee competing productions of Hototogisu running at the same tlm« a few blocks away from each other.
In 1907 two hundred thirty shimpa actors formed a Grand Coalition of New Actors (Shinhaiyu daidd danketsu), whlofe] lasted only two months, but was a clear indication of the strength and diffusion reached by the shimpa movement in I period of two decades. Novelists whose work had been I dramatized for shimpa use began to write original dramas. Tin most important among them was Mayama Seika (1878-1948). A number of successes of this period are still performed m "classics" of the shimpa repertory: an example is the pity derived from Izumi Kyoka's novel, Onnakeizu (A Woman's Chronicle), a tragic love story with strong sentimental overtones, that opened in 1909.
The Decadence of Shimpa
The beginning of shimpa's deca'dence coincides with the rise of shingeki. The function of shimpa as a catalyzer of new theatrical energies seemed soon to be exhausted. Attempts 10 revive audience interest, such as Inoue Masao's production of western plays with his new Shinjidaigeki Kyokai (Association for the New Epoch Theatre, founded 1911), or Kawai Takeo'l production of such plays as Hofmannsthal's Elektra with hil Koshu Gekidan (Public Theater Company, founded 1913), were unsuccessful.
Shimpa went through very difficult years during the Taisho period (1912-1926). Even the most popular stars such ai Ii and Kawai could hardly survive; the famous female impersonator Hanayagi Shotaro, however, scored some success with his geisha roles, which became and have remained very important in the shimpa repertory.
In 1929 the Shochiku Company took the initiative of bringing together all shimpa performers and managing regular performances. Shimpa was slowly taking its place in the Tokyo theatre establishment, in a new position, well defined by Inoue Masao in 1937, of chukan engeki, the "theatre in-between" kabuki and shingeki.
Around this time the actress Mizutani Yaeko (born in 1905), whose long career saw her rise to legendary status, was already enriching shimpa with her great acting and introducing a repertory of sentimental dramas with melodramatic heroines against the backdrop of the demimonde.
Nlilmpa from World War II
During World War II three shimpa companies were active, Tngekidojo (The Theatre Studio) directed by Inoue Masao; (icijutsuza (Art Theatre), directed by Mizutani Yaeko; and llonryu Shimpa (Main Stream Shimpa), directed by Kitamura Kokuro and Kawai Takeo. The revival of patriotic plays helped the fortunes of shimpa, but the end of the war opened i serious crisis of survival. The great post-war boom of shingeki attracted some of the best shimpa actors to the rival field, making the shimpa's situation even more critical, linally, in 1950 all remaining shimpa performers came together in a company called Gekidan Shimpa, which relied heavily on the fame of Mizutani Yaeko and Hanayagi Shotaro for a hoped-for revival. The famous Kubota Mantaro, Kawaguchi Matsutaro, and Nakano Minoru wrote some successful plays for shimpa. Shimpa became a synomym for light, sentimental, old fashioned drama, geared above all to an itudience made up primarily of housewives, and performed in a style in between the realism of shingeki and the traditional stylization of kabuki.
Shimpa was born in the Meiji period, during which time it reached the zenith of its success. There have been recent attempts to introduce shingeki-\ike plays and performance style into shimpa. In a true sense, however, shimpa still reflects the uncertain period of Japan's early modernization, and embodies a nostalgia for what today is felt as the old-fashioned, strangely distant, mixed esthetic tastes of a period when Japan was being introduced to the culture of the West.
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NOTES
^omiya, ed. Japanese Music and Drama in the Meiji Era, ]M
'Ortolani, "No, Kabuki and New Theatre Actors In iJ Theatrical Reforms of Meiji Japan (1868-1912),» 113.
'See an attempt to interpret the importance of Sadayakko'l 1
SäTES,."   Ur°Pe " SaV3reSe' "La PCripezia
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CHAPTER X
SHINGEKI: THE NEW DRAMA
the Period of Trial Plays (1906-1913)l
The pioneers of shimpa had shown little interest in the lerious study of western drama as a literary genre and as a guiding light in the process of modernizing the Japanese theatre. The occasional performances of great western plays by shimpa companies previous to shingeki's beginnings were experiments in superficial sensationalism; even in the golden era of shimpa, the repertory remained made up primarily of makeshift Japanese plays which did not even try to achieve literary value. Shimpa was born in the ebullient arena of active, sometimes violent, political confrontation, developed in a commercial direction, and stabilized under the management of the very same Shochiku company that ruled the kabuki world.
Shingeki, on the contrary, was born around two major Tokyo universities. From the very beginning the serious study, translation, and performance of western dramatic literature, as well as the development of a Japanese dramatic literature comparable in value to that of the West, have been central to the shingeki effort at creating a modern theatre in Japan. These principles were essential to at least some of the shingeki pioneers, who shunned commercialism, and worked mostly outside Japan's professional entertainment world.
A) Tsubouchi Shoyb. The establishment of the Bungei Kyokai (Literary Association, 1906) by Tsubouchi Shoyo (1858-1933) at Waseda University, and of the Jiyu Gekijo (Liberal Theatre, 1909, centering around Keio University) by Osanai Kaoru, are usually considered by historians as the starting point of shingeki. The two leaders and the movements
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iüilul.................!....... ■ -immmm
I nrllllf
they originated represent two very different approaches to lit* same ideal of modernizing the Japanese theatre.
Tsubouchi was a man of many activities and many mot ill His concerns were broader than the theatre: they cncoinpu«*»i| the wide spectrum of modernizing literature in gcncril, although focusing especially on the novel and the drama. I mlv in his career he became the leading literary critic  of his lint*, and pioneered the study of the nature of the western novel in his Shosetsu shinzui (The Essence of the Novel, 1885). Hcshli being considered with Osanai one of the two founding father! of shingeki, and having produced and directed the very fitil shingeki performances, he wrote a number of novels, translated the entire dramatic work of Shakespeare, authored a lew important plays of his own, published essays on the new esthetics, was the editor with Shimamura Hogetsu of ono ofl the most influential literary journals of the time, the Wa\ritn bungaku, and was a highly esteemed university professor, and J the recognized founder of theatre research in Japan.
Tsubouchi's basic approach to the complex problem ol modernization was that of using the serious study of (hi western masterpieces as a means to his end of reforming contemporary Japanese literature. His main purpose in j translating Shakespeare was not so much to capture nil spiritual message, but rather to learn his masterful play writing technique and use it for the reform of kabuki.2 From the commencement of his activity to his death Tsubouchi wai 1 concerned with the continuity and improvement of the existing forms of Japanese literature, including drama. As a theatre I historian, Tsubouchi had no doubt that kabuki was the theatra of Japan, and that the problem therefore was not whether to abandon kabuki or not, but how to reform kabuki for the new times. He had been disillusioned by Danjuro's kabuki 1 experiments with the historical accuracy of the katsureki plays, ] and was convinced that the way to modernize kabuki was by providing new literary texts that would satisfy the needs of a j contemporary psychological approach.
Tsubouchi did not consider himself a playwright; wanting, however, to give an example of what he meant, he wrote in | 1884, when he was only twenty-five, Kiri no hitoha (A Leaf of Paulownia). The protagonist of this historical play—a famous sixteenth-century warrior, Katagiri Katsumoto, caught in the struggle between his master Hideyoshi and the future ruler of
Japan, leyasu—offered an ideal case to demonstrate the new technique of dealing with psychological insight into a complex character facing extremely difficult circumstances; the traditional kabuki would simply have handled such a character ai a villain. Despite the favorable reception by the critics who reud the play in Waseda bungaku, the kabuki actors did not fael confortable with the implications of the new style. The play was not performed for twenty years until 1904, when it became a great success with both critics and audiences.
More important is Tsubouchi's second play, En no gydja (The Hermit), published in several versions between 1914 and 1921 and written under the influence of Ibsen, whom Tsubouchi in the meantime had discovered. The subject matter is a poetic re-telling of a legend about a Buddhist hermit and his deep disillusion caused by the failure, because of a woman, of his beloved disciple to follow his path of living. The personal emotion of loss and betrayal caused by the desertion of the actor Shimamura Hogetsu from Tsubouchi's company gives the play a sincere autobiographical touch, and, even more than in his preceding play, a dimension of profound psychological insight.
Tsubouchi's importance is not limited to his contribution to a renewal of playwriting. Even before establishing his Literary Association, Tsubouchi had started a playreading group to teach proper methods of elocution. He continued his mission as guide to the new generation of actors through his new association, the purpose of which more and more became that of training amateurs for the new plays. Tsubouchi had lost the hope of reforming the professional kabuki actors, and therefore concentrated his efforts on preparing a new breed of professionals from the ranks of amateurs having no family connections with the traditional theatre world.
Beyond his efforts as a teacher and founder of a school for actors which gave Japan some of its finest shingeki artists—such as the renowned actress Matsui Sumako and the actor/entrepreneur Sawada Shojiro, who became famous because he founded the theatrical group Shinkokugeki (New National Theatre, very popular in the twenties)—Tsubouchi is very important as a pioneer in producing and directing plays that remained as landmarks in the history of the new theatre. At the beginning of his producing/directing activity Tsubouchi had single acts or scenes from Shakespearean plays performed
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in between kabuki plays, of which the first was the court IQ0A| from the Merchant of Venice, presented at the Kuhukllt theatre (1906). After a few performances of Hamlet nt lite actors' school, he directed in 1911 a very successful production of Ibsen's A Doll's House. This led to an invitation to perform at the Imperial Theatre, then the most modern and beil equipped stage in Tokyo. This recognition of shingeki can M considered as the highpoint of the Bungei Kyokai ai I producing company, and a landmark in the history of lit* modern Japanese theatre.
The unfortunate romance between Tsubouchi's disciple Shimamura Hogetsu and the leading star Matsui Sumnkti provoked a crisis in the Bungei Kyokai which led to ill dissolution in 1913, after a final performance of ShakespearVl! Julius Caesar at the Imperial Theatre.
B) Osanai Kaoru. While Tsubouchi had championed continuity and gradual reform, Osanai Kaoru (1881-1921) became the promoter of a complete break from the past and of a new start according to the models of the contempornry western theatre. Tsubouchi had programmatically avoided professional actors and placed his hopes for the future in (he transformation of amateurs into professionals through hli school. Osanai, on the contrary, with his collaborator, the kabuki actor Ichikawa Sadanji (1880-1940, the first among tin-shingeki pioneers to visit Europe), wanted to re-educate professional kabuki actors into non-professional shingeki \ performers.   Tsubouchi had aimed at a renewal of drama, music, and dance without ever abandoning his ideal of a modernized kabuki. Osanai had no interest in music and dance—which he dismissed as entertainment for the masses— and concentrated on the inception of a realistic, psychological drama, according to what he considered to be the real message of the most important modern western playwrights. While Tsubouchi had given equal importance to Shakespeare and Ibsen, Osanai placed  every western author before Ibsen at the same level as no and kabuki, and therefore considered them irrelevant to the efforts to speed up  the  modernization of Japan.   While the morally conservative Tsubouchi had not particularly appreciated certain Ibsenian attitudes—such as those exemplified by Nora's behavior in A Doll's House —Osanai loved controversial plays which   scrutinized values taken for granted in the past.
ShitiKfki
The first production of the Jiyu Gekijo was Ibsen's John fftbrltl Borkman, only thirteen years after its premiere in « openhagen.3 This production, considered by many as the first ipiiI shingeki performance, was staged on November 27, 1909, at the Yurakuza, then probably the most up-to-date theatre in Tokyo. Despite the fact that the female roles were performed by kabuki onnagata, and that Sadanji interpreted the intense Huilt feelings of the typical Northern introverted main character with the falsetto tones of traditional kabuki diction, audiences were deeply moved and perceived that a new kind Of drama was being offered for the first time in Japan.
Osanai organized his theatre according to the model of the Stage Society of London, which his associate Sadanji had experienced during his stay in London. Each year he presented only a couple of new productions to a limited membership until the group ended in 1919. His repertory consisted primarily of non-Anglo-Saxon authors such as Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Gorkij, Hauptmann, Wedekind, and Pirandello.
During the early years of shingeki the performance style of both the Bungei Kyokai and the Jiyu Gekijo troupes remained closely related to that of kabuki, especially in the matter of diction. Tsubouchi had studied closely the technique of joruri singing, and Osanai had been involved with kabuki actors from the onset of his shingeki activity. The definite step in the direction of a realistic acting method was taken after Osanai's trip abroad in 1912-1913, during which he experienced the work of Max Reinhardt in Berlin and of Stanislavskij in Moscow, each of whom remained lifelong models for his work.
The Period of Commercialization (1914-1923)
The years that followed the dissolution of the Bungei Kyokai saw a number of shingeki companies coming together and falling apart without any special achievement as far as the quality of performances was concerned. Tsubouchi was silent and hurt. Osanai, fresh from his experiences abroad, did not hide his disillusionment at the poor quality in the performances of the period's best troupes, including the Geijutsuza (formed by Shimamura Hogetsu and Matsui Sumako after the dissolution of the Bungei Kyokai).  The Geijutsuza
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had a great success in 1914 with the production of TolMol'l Resurrection, which went on tour all over Japan, but the crlttfi insisted that popularity had come at the price of quality and accomodation to the taste of the masses. The death of Shimamura in 1918 and the suicide of Matsui in 1919 maiketl the end of the Geijutsuza.
According to the critics, shingeki of this period had lu«l the enthusiasm and inherited the defects of its early days, I d. division into numerous, mostly short-lived, small companies did not help the cause of quality. "The intellectuals of tht| time found pleasure in the mere sight of red-haired people with pipes in their mouth and their shoulders against the mantelpiece, engaged in philosophical discussion, or juil cutting meat with their knives and forks."4 This statement \)f playwright Takada Tamotsu expresses the feeling of tholf contemporaries who became very critical about the exaggerated hopes of intellectuals looking to the West as a saviour. At (hit point several critics began to divorce themselves from | shingeki that was slipping into a superficial acting-out of western curiosities.
On the positive side, shingeki playwrights such as Yoihil Isamu, Nagata Hideo, Kuřata Momozo, and others began to write shingeki plays that achieved success. Kurata MomozA'l Shukke to sono deshi (The Monk and His Disciple, 1916), | drama about an idealized Shinran Shonin, the famoui thirteenth century Buddhist reformer, provides a touching example of the search for a new synthesis between Japaneil and imported ideals.5
The Early Tsukiji Little Theatre Movement (1924-1927)
The years between the great Tokyo earthquake of 1923 and the death of Osanai Kaoru in 1928 are dominated by the opening of the first theatre exclusively dedicated to shingeki and by the activities of Osanai's final years. The vail destruction in the capital provided Tokyo with an opportunity to modernize its appearance: new buildings, new streets, and new theatres. Hijikata Yoshi (1898-1959), who was in Germany at the time of the earthquake to study contemporary theatre movements, immediately returned to Tokyo at the newi of the earthquake and financed the building  of the Little
Theatre at Tsukiji (Tiukljl Shogekijo), in an area close to the Olnza and far away from Asukusa, the entertainment quarter where most of the previous shingeki performances had taken place. The move to Tsukiji meant catering to a more exclusive audience, limited in number, and conscious of being an Intellectual elite interested in ideas in foreign plays. Osanai became the soul of the new five-hundred-seat theatre, which was designed according to the latest developments in western Ihcatre architecture and provided with excellent equipment for lighting and scenic effects. He conceived the new theatre as an experimental laboratory where the various western styles, from realism to expressionism, from impressionism to symbolism, and all avant-garde novelties were to be tried out and presented to a public eager to become acquainted with them. The Tsukiji Shogekijo became the center of shingeki activity, the place where a new generation of shingeki theatre people was formed.
Osanai had been especially influenced in Europe by the importance of the director, as exemplified by the period's two i mopean directorial giants, Max Reinhardt in Berlin and Stanislavsky in Moscow. The work of the Russian maestro in building an ensemble remained in Osanai's memory as probably the most important model to imitate in his future work in Japan. This explains why he did not give much importance to the development of new Japanese plays, which he considered inferior—his own plays included—and which he completely neglected for several years; he instead concentrated all his enormous energy on building the "cult of the director" as applied to the production of translations of the best contemporary western plays. In this period about fifty major western plays were produced, against very few original works by new Japanese playwrights.
The difference in taste between Osanai and Hijikata became more and more evident. Osanai preferred authors who were primarily interested in an artistic message, especially those in the psychological-naturalistic vein such as he had experienced during the time he spent with Stanislavsky. Hijikata, on the contrary, during his Russian trip had particularly admired Meyerhold's brilliant combination of vivid theatricalism, daring stylization, and political message; hence his preference for expressionistic and politically involved plays. Hijikata became more and more part of a trend
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towards socialism which was to take over most of the shlHtfitf world as soon as Osanai's leadership was brought to an iiluii|i| end by his premature death in 1928. Tsubouchi's and Owning battle against Marxist infiltration into the shingeki world Ute» never showed any understanding of or inclination lowartl socialism—was lost.
The Leftist Propaganda Plays (1928-1932)
In the economic crisis of the twenties trade unionism nml other leftist workers' movements developed in Japan, but w#|$] severely repressed by the conservative government. A numbtf! of leftist intellectuals rallied around shingeki theatre companies to continue their  political battle  for socialism. In 1921 Hirasawa Keishichi   started the Rodo Gekidan (Worker1! Company), and in 1925 the Toranku Gekijo (Trunk ThealrtH inspired by the European Agit-prop theatre), began ill performances. Its founders were to give life to a number of leftist companies, such as the Zen'ei Gekijo (Avant-gardf Theatre) and the Proretaria Gekijo (Proletarian Theatre). Aft3 the death of Osanai, Hijikata left the company of the TsukIJi Theatre and started the Shin Tsukiji Gekidan (New Tsukiji Company), which became, with the Sayoku Gekijo (Leftlil Theatre, a company that had coalesced out of smaller leftlil groups) the main force of the shingeki world.
The leftist movement was sharply criticized by non« socialist historians, who found the plays and performance style of this period dull, repetitious, and devoid of artistie inspiration; theatrical values were replaced by propaganda slogans inciting to class struggle, and the proletarian playi offered classes in Marxist ideology instead of genuine poetical drama. Leftist critics, on the other hand, consider this time ai the fervent years of shingeki; the plays of such leftist playwrights as Murayama Tomoyoshi (born 1901), Kubo Sakaa (1901-1958), and Miyoshi Jur5 (1902-1958) are thought of ai typical, important examples of shingeki political theatre. There is no doubt that there were no geniuses among those talented authors who tried to succeed at the difficult task of joining political propaganda and playwriting: it would be unjust, however, to dismiss their contributions, in difficult circumstances, as worthless. The leftist companies did rely
almost exclusively on Japuncse scripts, thus providing for the first time the place for new Japanese plays that Osanai had refused. However, Osanai's "cult of the director" had deeply penetrated the mental attitude of the leftist leaders, who relegated the playwright to the inferior position of a scenario-writer subject to the demands of an omnipotent director—thus perpetuating the old kabuki traditions of the playwright being mainly a hack in the service of a leading actor.
The Marxist political dominance of shingeki could not go unnoticed by the military authorities, who began to censor "subversive" leftist propaganda, jailed leaders like Murayama, and eventually suppressed the principal leftist shingeki companies.
The Artistic Period (1933-1940)
The harassment of the leftist companies by the authorities reached a point at which plays were censored and occasionally forbidden, leaders and actors sometimes arrested and jailed, and spectators attending the plays had to face the risk of being held and interrogated by the police. The Nihon Proretaria Gekijo D5mei (Japan Proletarian Theater Federation), which had succeeded in obtaining control of most of shingeki by 1930, was finally dissolved in 1934. Meanwhile, a group of anti-leftist shingeki actors and playwrights had come together in 1932 as the Tsukijiza, a company with an artistic program which introduced two new important elements to the shingeki structure: first, the elimination of the all-dominant figure of the company leader in favor of a collective leadership by actors, and, second, a preference given to serious, original Japanese plays as the backbone of the repertory. This is a time during which a number of important playwrights developed new Japanese plays of lasting value. Among them the important contribution of Kishida Kunio (Mama sensei to sono otto, Professor Mama and Her Husband, Ushiyama Hoteru, Ushiyama Hotel), KLubota Mantaro {Fuyu, Winter, Kadode, Leaving Home, Odera gakko, Odera School), Satomi Ton (Ikiru, Living), Tanaka Chikao (Ofukuro, Mother), and others.
Kishida (1890-1954) was educated as a specialist in French literature, and in France he learnt the technique of the French conversation plays.6 Upon his  return to Japan in 1923
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he began to work in small shingeki companies. Ho played « important role in the formation of the Tsukiji/.a, supposing the two major actors, Tomoda Kyosuke and Tamamurn Aklkii, and providing leadership in the choice of the repertory Me was a major factor in switching the main focus of attention #■ the shingeki people from the German, Scandinavian, nml Russian dramatists—who had been the favorite of Osannl unit of the leftist groups—to the French and English authori, Id France Kishida had learnt to admire Copeau's work, and hntl nurtured the ideal of transferring to Japan Copeau's intention] of renovating  the dramatic literature. Kishida, moreover, hoped to assume a mission in Japan as shingekVs teacher* theoretician-reformer,   much as Copeau had been for thl I contemporary French theatre. Kishida's achievement!, however,   were not as high as his ideals. He succeeded, though, in leading a number of the best shingeki talents to I serious pursuit of non-political, purely  literary, and theatrical 1 values in the plays, and of artistic integrity in then performance. These ideals became the program of the Bungakuza, the company he was instrumental in forminii (1936), which became the longest lasting group in shingeki history.
After the suppression of the major leftist companies, I Murayama Tomoyoshi, who had been in prison until 1933, ] rallied some of the left-over politically involved shingeki people and formed the Shinkyd Gekidan (Collaboration Company) in 1934. It was a time in which Socialist Realism was enforced in the Soviet Union over "formalistic deviations,* and the Japanese Marxists followed the new party line. The best plays in this style were Kazanbaichi, by Kubo Sakae, which criticizes capitalistic farm policies, and Hokutb no kazt (North-East Wind) by Hisaita Eijiro.
Meanwhile, the government had become less and less tolerant of any activity "unsuitable to the national feeling." The leftist companies took refuge in the performance of western classics and the training of their actors according to the Stanislavsky method. They tried not to attract the attention of the hostile authorities, but it was to no avail. On August 19, 1940, the two remaining leftist shingeki troupes, the Shinkyo Gekidan and the Shin Tsukiji Group, were dissolved and a number of their members arrested. The only survivor during the war years was the Bungakuza, which had no political
affiliation and quietly continued the pursuit of its "art for art's »«ke" ideal. Those shingeki actors who were released from jail could perform during the war only under the supervision and control of the nationalistic authorities.
Shingeki after World War II (1944-1994)
Immediately after the war the American occupation authorities favored shingeki. They were distrustful of the "feudalistic" traditional drama of kabuki and no, which was censored and subjected to special control, while complete freedom and support was given to the new westernized drama as a potential instrument of democratization. All prominent veteran shingeki actors joined forces and in December 1945 opened with a production of the old favorite of Japanese audiences, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. Soon a number of companies were organized, and an extraordinary torrent of productions followed, with a success that for a short while seemed to indicate a possible assumption by shingeki of the leading role among post-war theatrical genres.
Among the post-war companies one of the most important is the Haiyuza (Actors Theatre, founded in 1944), centered around the director/actor Senda Koreya. Senda has been for many years one of the main leaders of shingeki activity; he had a great influence also as the founder of an actors' school in which numerous successful recent shingeki performers were trained. Senda had been involved with the leftist theatre movement for years before starting the new company with the director Aoyama Sugisaku, the actors Tono Eijiro and Ozawa Sakae, and the actresses Higashiyama Chieko and Kishi Teruko.
Also important is the Tokyo Geijutsu Gekijo (Tokyo Art Theatre), the major members of which formed, after its dissolution, the Gekidan Mingei (People's Art Theatre, founded in 1950) around Uno Jukichi. The Bungakuza flourished after the war, continuing its artistic mission, while companies like the Haiyuza, Mingei, and Murayama's reconstitued leftist Shinkyo Gekidan showed a renewed Marxist involvement. The honeymoon between shingeki and the occupation authorities was soon over. Marxist propaganda
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began to appear more dangerous than the "feudalists" traditions plays—which were actually admired by audiences not Inn'hum of their remote contents but for the enjoyment of politically harmless stylized theatricalism. While the censorship of ktihuki plays was being eased, and eventually abolished, the offloltjj backing of   shingeki soon became a policy of the pail Shingeki was on its own, and the wave of initial enthusimm gradually leveled off. Numerous companies came and wrni, many of them lasting only a short time. In an average yem in the fifties and the sixties there might have been in Tokyo forty to fifty such companies producing about a hundred plnyi yearly.
The shingeki companies, as a rule, have no fixed place of performance; for each production they rent for tholi production a hall, proportionate in size and importance to their means and their hope of public reception; these places range from large modern theatres to small private or public halls, Of even locales comparable to off-off Broadway lofts. 1ft i 1954 the Haiyuza Company built its own 400-seat theatre called Haiyuza Gekijo, which was rebuilt in 1980. I in ensemble, however, no longer uses that facility for its major shows because it would not be financially possible to product an expensive play for such a small audience.
Most shingeki actors have traditionally supported themselves with work outside their company, especially in television and other commercial jobs, both acting-related and not, because it has been well known since shingeki's birth that "you cannot make a living with shingeki." For the great majority of shingeki people their many years of hard work in the theatre has been an act of faith in political and/or artistic ideals with minimal financial reward. As a matter of fact, the actors have been in the habit of contributing their earnings to the company so as to be able to produce plays, shingeki never having been granted state support, and high rents, taxes, and low returns creating a constant economic strain.
In recent years, however, greater flexibility and interchangeability among the various fields of the performing arts has increasingly blurred the border between the despised "commercial"7 and the revered "artistic" and/or "politically committed" theatre. The beginnings of this process were seen as early as the fifties and the sixties, when it became fashionable to experiment with the use of stars of one genre
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fix peiloiiiuiiccs in miollin Important companies like Kumo (The Clouds), founded In 1963 by Fukuda Tsuneari (born 1912), one of the most important critics and leaders of thlngeki from the sixties to the present time, made use of famous kabuki actors in the interpretation of the major Khokespearean roles. Kyogen and no actors like Nomura Munsaku and Kanze Hideo became part of avant-garde experimental groups, and important shingeki actors like Akutagawa Hiroshi or even avant-garde directors like Suzuki Tadashi became famous in the so-called commercial circuit of the theatre or through the movies.
Moreover, an important development inside the shingeki world is represented by the enormous diffusion of both government and commercial television networks in Japan, especially since the seventies. Entire shingeki productions have been broadcast and followed by millions of viewers, opening for the best shingeki actors the wide market of television popularity, which greatly enlarges the range previously reached by the work of a few shingeki actors in films.
Shingeki actors and directors are also hired along with movie and television stars for the so-called "commercial" productions of hit plays often transferred from Broadway and West End theatres to the Tokyo stages—thus increasingly blurring the boudaries of what defines shingeki.
Since the fifties a number of shingeki groups have come and gone; only a few still survive to the present (1988) or have left a lasting mark in Japan's theatrical landscape. Among them is the group Gekidan Shiki (Theatre Four Seasons), founded in 1953 and directed since its beginning by Asari Keita (b. 1933), who was inspired by the ideals of playwright Kato Michio (1918-1953). Kato was deeply influenced by the French literature and the French way of acting, and this explains why the repertory of Gekidan Shiki consisted almost exclusively of French plays—especially those by Giraudoux and Anouilh. Since 1972 Shiki has ventured into the production of large scale musicals, among which the recent Cats and Phantom of the Opera were immensely popular.
The Kumo company—established by Fukuda as a part of his Modern Drama Foundation— specialized in performing Fukuda's translations of the major Shakespearean plays. Kumo sought to realize the high aspirations of its demanding leader
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for a literary theatre, in contrast with the overtly political ami ideological aims of groups like the Haiyuza and Mingei, and id opposition to the flatness of a style inspired by socialist realism. Kumo's inheritance was taken over by the compaAJ Subaru (The Pleiades), founded by Fukuda in 1976 after |M dissolution of Kumo.
The Hayuza company still maintains a position • 11 leadership in the shingeki world. Veteran actor-director St nil Koreya (b. 1904, real name It5 Kunio) continued his imponanl mission of training hundreds of actors at his Research Instilutt of Actor's Theatre until 1967, when the training work wai transferred to the newly established   theatre department at ffi "ho Gakuen. The Bungakuza company, the longest living shingeki group established in 1937, continues, notwithstandiiti a number of painful secessions, its non-political performanflJ|1 of valuable, literary texts.  Gekidan Mingei,  the spiritual half to the proletarian theatre of the leftist tradition, solidly anchored in realism, is still—with the Hayuza and th| Bungakuza—one of the three major shingeki companies.
Probably the most interesting achievement of shingeki In the last few decades has been the maturation of playwrights of1 sustained distinction, some of whom recently have achieved I deserved international recognition. Outstanding among them || Mishima Yukio (1925-1970) whose modern no plays trf frequently produced by many companies all over the world. Most of Mishima's plays, which followed an almost morbid and decadent "art for art's sake" estheticism before he became involved in his dream of the restoration of ultratraditional samurai values, were premiered by Tokyo's Bungakuza in tht fifties and in the sixties.
Also important is the work of Kinoshita Junji (b. 1914), whose play Yuzuru (Twilight Crane) is a delicate masterpieot j of the poetic-symbolic genre, and an important break from the realistic shingeki tradition. Yuzuru was also adapted for kabuki, no, and opera performance. Besides his plays centered on the theme of folklore, such as Hikoichibanashi (Tales of Hikoichl) and Akai jimbaori (The Red Tunic), Kinoshita has written successful plays on social themes, such as Furd (Wind and Waves) and Otto to vobareru Nihonjin (A Japanese Called Otto).9
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Tanaka Chikao's (b. 1905) lifetime work spans many periods of shingeki history. In his many plays, from Ofukuro (Mother, 1933) to the more mature Maria no kubi (Mary's Neck), Tanaka shows a delicate and profound insight into the Intricacies of modern Japanese interior struggles, not only, as 10 often had been the case, on a political level, but primarily on the individual and religious levels as well.
The break from the realistic/naturalistic style, even in leftist shingeki companies, began with the introduction of Irecht in the fifties. In the sixties the advent of absurdism sharpened the discussion about the place of theatrical elements (engekisei), ideological elements (kannensei), and literary elements (bungakusei) in theatre, with the result that there was, at least theoretically, an acceptance of the importance of theatricality in the new absurdist plays by Japanese authors such as Abe Kobo (b. 1925).
Abe already had become known abroad because of the filming of his novel Suna no onna (The Woman in the Dunes, 1962). His many avant-garde plays, starting with Doreigari (Slave Hunting) in 1955, through the more recent plays such as Tomodachi (Friends) and Suichu toshi (Underwater City) baffled Japanese critics because of their pitiless and unconventional vivisection of the contradictions in today's society. Abe's plays also have been presented abroad, in an avant-garde style typical of the sixties by his own company, the Abe Sutajio (Abe Studio), which was founded in 1973, and continues in Tokyo with performances in repertory of the plays by its leader.
It was unavoidable, in the wake of a renewed nationalism and pride in the value of the Japanese tradition, that shingeki artists would "rediscover" the importance of no and kabuki as a source of inspiration for new plays and for actor training. Mishima, taking a hint from the modern adaptation of the Greek classics by French playwrights, had opened the way by using themes from the classical no for his modern no plays. Kinoshita had found in kyogen inspiration for his folkloristic plays. A further step in this direction was to be taken by the new generation of posi-shingeki theatre groups, that are now known under the common denominator of underground theatre, or angura.
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During the last few years of the Shown period (en. I'JM
1989), after the gradual fading away of the nmln ......■
theatre movement (1960-1985, see next paragraph), \hinM*kl has shown little artistic vitality. The healthy iiunihn i companies, productions, and new theatre buildings refleeh id* extraordinary prosperity of the Japanese economy I ho Japanese critics, however, lament shingeki's lack of direcllM and its widespread escapism, deprived of serious inspiration, m exemplified by the great number of senseless, superflfH comedies. They cannot avoid the comparison with tht "commercial" shows, which follow production patterns simllNi to those of Broadway or the West End and often succeed in reaching higher quality and greater success, while employing also in competition with the media, an increasing number Or the best shingeki talent. The role of the traditional shinn< ki companies and, in general, the characteristics of shingeki If) the pluralistic Japanese theatrical scene of the next decadttf remain, at the beginning of the new period of Japaneil history, Heisei, difficult to foresee.
The Underground Theatre Movement (1960-1985)
While shingeki was finding its place among the legitimate forms of the Japanese theatre, the function of protest and avant-garde experimentation was being taken over by the underground movement (angura).10 Although born from ad explicitly anti-American protest, the angura developed • following in the manner of the off-off Broadway theatre and of the "happenings" in New York in the sixties, with the same purpose, that of creating a new counterculture. Its origins were in the violent demonstrations led by the leftist Zengakuren i student organization against the renewal of the United States-Japan Security Treaty in 1960. The fact that the shingeki groups—even those that openly proclaimed themselves pro-communist—failed to react seriously to the treaty renewal caused deep disaffection among the young protesters with what they sneeringly started to call the "Old Left." They also felt alienated from the powerful leftist Roen (acronym for • Rodosha engeki hyogikai, The Workers' Council on Theatre), which had deteriorated, in their eyes, into a champion of
eonscrvntivism concerned only with the profitable recruitment nl audiences and with the preservation of its own power. Politically, a number of the young protesters wanted neither the alliance with the United States, favored by the government, nor a new one with the Soviet bloc, favored by the pro-communist leftist organizations. They were fighting for a complete "independence" of Japan, in a non-aligned, neutral position.
Most of the protest-inspired youth produced rather poor, overwritten plays and sophomoric acting, often displaying grotesque elements in costume and make-up, shocking nudity, loud music, and so on; they thus were akin to a part of the avant-garde work being done in the radical New York theatre of the sixties. Among bursts of exuberant and often confused %TI\\-shingeki energy some important common characteristic traits emerged in the work of a number of representative post-\hingeki playwrights, who deserve special consideration.
After World War II the major shingeki groups had developed—notwithstanding differences in artistic and political Ideals—a silent consensus in accepting the following characteristics typical of much western modern theatre: a commitment to realism; the principle that theatre must be based on a text, which both actor and director cooperate to correctly intepret on the stage; a deep conviction that the theatre "educates" the audience, which takes therefore the pussive attitude of a pupil towards his master; and the use of a conventional proscenium stage. The commitment to realism took the shape of a thorough effort to completely secularize drama in Japan, ignoring the existence of, and replacing the native gods and demons—omnipresent in pre-Meiji drama—with imported psychology and Marxist slogans. The better angura artists began to question the above shingeki tenets, and eventually rejected them, one by one, in the attempt to create a new, original, non-western contemporary Japanese theatre, rooted again in the native tradition. Goodman calls this process of re-rooting "the return of the gods"11 and warns that such return is not meant as a religious revival, but as a process to liberate Japanese ghosts (i.e., the Japanese gods, as a symbol of the Japanese archetypal, aesthetic, and sociopsychological heritage) "not to affirm them, but to aknowledge and negate them."
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Most angura groups, including the first inspired In lM new ideals, the Seinengeijutsu (1939), had a very short life, lacked professionalism, and relied more on shocking iht audiences than on learning the necessary acting technique* The five groups that succeeded in achieving results worth mentioning are the Kurotento 68/71, the Jokyo Gekijo, Ihe Tenjo Sajiki, the Tenkei Gekijo, and the Waseda ShogekiJS.
The theoreticians of the Kurotento 68/71 (called ill English Black Tent Theatre, or BTT 68/71) are Tsuno Kullatfi (b. 1938) and Saeki Ryuko (b. 1941), who gave shape to ill* criticism against shingeki shared by most angura groups.' Instead of using the typical proscenium stage in a conventional shingeki theatre, the BBT 68/71 built in 1970 an enormOVf! black tent where any kind of stage could be set up. The lent made possible a complete independence from the organiltf] network of traditional shingeki theatres, confined mostly within the Tokyo metropolitan area. Instead of traditional realistic plays, a number of performances were presented, including "songs, dances, one-liners, agit-prop, promotion readings, record concerts, film screenings, standup comedy, slapstick, Noh and Kyogen, through lectures and panel discussions, to demonstrations, carnivals, parties, and mail meetings."1    Instead of catering almost exclusively to the Tokyo shingeki audiences, the BTT 68/71 began traveling, extensively all over Japan, performing in a great number of centers which had never been reached by shingeki, and trying always to involve the audience in the action. BTT 68/71 also performs sophisticated theatrical extravaganzas/new plays by such playwrights as Satoh Makoto, Kato Tadashi, and Yamamoto Kiyokazu, in a small locale called the Red Cabaret in Tokyo. Instead of preserving the shingeki cult for European style, the BTT 68/71 has increasingly leaned towards the creation of an Asian style, going back to no and kyogen and assimilating elements from other Asian countries such ai China, Korea, India and the Philippines.
While the BTT 68/71 always tried to draw its repertory from a number of new playwrights, the Jokyo Gekijo (Situation Theatre) orbited around the work of its charismatic leader, the playwright Kara Juro (b. 1940). Also departing from shingeki tenets, Kara led his troupe to perform in most unusual environments, using "public toilets, railroad stations, and even lily ponds (from the waters of which the cast make
their entrances and exits) as the setting for his plays."14 Kara was the first to use a tent for his performances (1967), and his red tent in the precincts of the Hanazono Shrine in Shinjuku became a symbol of revolt against environmental abuses. Searching for inspiration in the Japanese tradition, especially in kabuki, Kara called his actors kawara kojiki ("river-bed beggars," the name by which Tokugawa era kabuki actors were culled), and found in the kabuki techniques models for a non-realistic acting style, while also the content of his plays leaned more on traditional kabuki themes than on the modern western models. A prolific playwright, Kara received the Kishida Prize for his Shojo kamen (Virgin Mask, 1969), and was honored also with the important Akutagawa Prize for literature (1983). Among the best of his plays is Ai no kojiki (John Silver, The Beggar of Love, 1970),15 a typical example of retreat of the avant-garde from the political and social action Of the sixties into the individual consideration of human fragmentation and a search for a world of fantasy and poetry typical of the seventies and the eighties. Kara also pursued an Asian ideal of independence from western models, and traveled often with his company to third world countries, remaining on purpose aloof from a pursuit of fame in the industrialized countries of the West. Recently Kara has begun directing "commercial" productions in Tokyo, joining therefore other avant-garde artists like Suzuki Tadashi who have, in recent years, capitalized on their fame to be hired by the once despised corporate establishment.
The third group, Tenjo Sajiki, owes its existence to one man, Terayama Shuji (1935-1983) who produced a large amount of avant-garde work not only in the theatre, but also in poetry, film, photography, television, radio scripts, and children's theatre.16 His happening-like underground theatre provided hallucinatory visual and sound experiences for an audience invited to share in the continuing search for a more intense and meaningful reality than that of everyday routine. Terayama, born in the poor and mountainous Aoyama region, grew up with the hard memories of the postwar years, as an underprivileged and sickly youth: eventually he had to drop out of Waseda University and struggle for the balance of his short life because of poor health. This partially explains his poetic and escapist vivid imagination, never tired of creating happenings, street theatre, and theatrical events, one of which,
Jinriki hikbki soromon (The Man-Powered Airplane, SolomORi 1970) for example, required the spectators to go to cliff or till places in Tokyo at a variety of times, making therefore inexperience different for each individual. Tcrayumn dlil participate with his troupe in a number of European and American Festivals and became therefore well known abroad because of his "scandalous" style.
The post-shingeki reaction against the foreign dogma of realism is especially represented by the work of Ota Shogo (l» 1939), founder and director of the Tenkei Gekijo (Theatre of Transformation), founded in 1968 and disbanded for financial non-viability in 1988. Ota is especially known for his three* part play, Mizu no eki (Water Station), Chi no eki (Earthhlll Station), and Kaze no eki (Wind Station), and for his work ai I critic and theoretician (Doshi no in'ei, Shades of Verbs, and J Geki no kibb, The Hope of Drama). Mizu no eki is a two-hourl play in which not a word is spoken: the wordless interna performance by actors trained to perform with almost blank facial expression and slow movements, impressed public and critics in Japan and abroad because of its successful attempt to rediscover the no's secret of the moments of non-action.17 Thi tendency to silence is also evident in Komachi fuden (Tale of Komachi Told by the Wind,  1977), one of the few contemporary plays that uses a no stage and has a protagonist B heroine who does not speak throughout the play. Ota believei that "only what is difficult to convey is worth artistic expression," and therefore drama should emphasize the power of "passivity," that is of being, instead of the easier to convey power of "activity," that is of doing. Silence and quiet are a great part of human "being," and should therefore be prominent on the stage instead of word and action. In the early nineties Ota has switched to a new period of his creativity, ai the artistic director of the new Civic Theatre, a municipal theatre in Fujisawa, a suburb of Tokyo. His play Sarachi, which premiered there in 1992, presents speaking characters and confirms Ota's preoccupation with simple daily life: "dispossession, wandering, a search for for connectedness; questioning and reaffirmation of life."18 Ota is basically apolitical, like a growing number of today's leading theatre people belonging to the surviving shingeki companies or to whatever is left of the post-shingeki movement; he is, however, concerned with an intercultural approach that
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furthers experiments with foreign artists—an approach that he ihares with the abroad better known theatre directors Suzuki ludashi and Ninagawa Yukio.
The Waseda Shogekijo (Waseda Little Theatre, since 1984 colled SCOT, Suzuki Company of Toga) rooted in the student theatre at Waseda University, developed around the personalities of the already mentioned leader, Suzuki Tadashi, and of the gifted playwright Betsuyaku Minoru (b. 1937). Mctsuyaku is the author of the first play of some importance written for the post-shingeki movement, Zo (The Elephant)19 produced in 1962 by the group which at the time was called Jiyu Butai (Free Stage), before taking the name Waseda Little Theatre in 1966. Zo shows evident influences of Beckett, and repeats the lack of action, the sense of futility and hopelessness of man trapped in life, the darkness and pessimism expressed through the poetical helplessness of a clown, so typical of numerous avant-garde/absurdist plays since Waiting for Godot. The deceptive simplicity of the lunguage had also a great influence on the stage language of the angura plays.20 The return to Japanese traditional no theatre for inspiration is also typical of Betsuyaku's work, as much as it is in some aspects of Suzuki' s method of training. The Waseda Little Theatre did not limit itself to Betsuyaku's plays, on the contrary it was responsible for presenting to the public the two important works Atashi no biitoruzu aruiwa sbshiki (My Beetles and the Funeral, 1966) by Satoh Makoto, and the already mentioned Virgin Mask (1969) by Kara, both directed by Suzuki Tadashi. In collaboration with the actress Shiraishi Kayoko, Suzuki developed a series of collages titled Gekiteki naru mono o megutte I, II, III (On the Dramatic Passions, I, II, III) which gave Suzuki the chance to develop his synthesis of an acting style founded in severe discipline, the martial arts, and kabuki and no techniques.21 Of all the post-shingeki groups, the Waseda Little Theatre was the one that received the greatest attention in Europe and in the United States, because of the keen interest in finding a bridge between eastern and western traditions and solving the practical problem of making the experience of classical Japanese acting techniques meaningful for today's performers of western plays. The success of Suzuki's production of The Trojan Women both in Japan and in the tours abroad is to be explained in view of this special interest of elites. In imitation
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of Jerzy Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre in Wroclaw, Poland, Suzuki moved with his troupe to a small village, Togamura, fit away from every important cultural center, and began thert I five-year period of intense training that lasted until 1980, Togamura has become since an important center, where yearly groups of professional actors from many countries are trained, and theatrical events of international interest take place.
The vitality of the angura movement appears to httve subsided since the onset of the eighties, to the point that many critics have declared it as practically finished by 1983, notwithstanding the fact that most of its major playwrights are still very prolific. It is still premature to attempt a definition of its historical position and value. In the long range, the phenomenon of angura might end up in the history of Japanese theatre as a short and not very relevant offshoot of the shingeki movement, or as the turning point for a new, yet to be named, post-shingeki period. Today, at the beginning of the Heisei era (began 1989), it becomes ever more difficult to draw the lines of demarcation between shingeki and angura, and between shingeki and the commercial theatre. Suzukl'l career  is an example of the blurring of borders among the genres of the modern Japanese theatre. He began as a student at Waseda University during the politically activistic anti-shingeki underground theatre movement of the sixties, then started to reevaluate the treasures of the Japanese tradition after discovering the power of the no at a 1972 international festival in France. From an avant-garde position he developed his own group into a conservative, highly disciplined unit that many would probably  categorize as a form of contemporary shingeki;   at the same time, Suzuki directed commercial productions of Broadway-like plays for major Japanese producing companies, and made his mark on the international scene both through the presentation of his productions and the teaching of his method  abroad, as well as by organizing his international school and festival in the mountains at Togamura.
The increased mobility of several performers and directors from one to the other genre of the pluralistic Japanese scene, with the consequent blurring of the borders among the genres themselves, might well be the most characteristic development of the Japanese theatre of the eighties and beginning nineties.
NOTES
'The division of shingeki history follows with few modifications the one proposed by Toita Yasuji in his Shingeki gojünen, (Fifty years of shingeki), Tokyo: Jijitsushinsha, 1956.
'Ortolani, "Fukuda Tsuneari: Modernization and Shingeki," 484-488. See also Rimer, Toward a Modern Japanese Theatre: Kishida Kunio, 17-27.
sRimer, Ibid., 29. Tokyo: Shinchösha 1958, 221.
4Words by the playwright Takada Tamotsu during a conversation with Fukuda, referred to by Fukuda himself in his essay "Nihon shingeki-shi gaikan (Outline of Japanese shingeki history)," in Watakushi no engeki hakusho (My theatre confessions), Tokyo: Shinchösha, 1958: 221.
5See a summary of this play in Ortolani, "Das japanische Theater," in Kindermann, ed. Einführung in das Oslasiatische Theater, 401-403.
6See Rimer, Toward a Modern Theater: Kishida Kunio, 57-71, and passim, for a thorough discussion of Kishida's life and accomplishments.
7See Tsubaki, "Bunraku Puppet Theatre, Kabuki, and Other Commercial Theatre," 100-102, for a listing of the most important companies producing "commercial" theatre, among which the two giants are Shöchiku and Töhö.
8See Tsubaki and Miyata, "Shingeki, The New Theatre of Japan," 103-110, for a listing of the major shingeki companies operating at present in Japan. See also Theater Japan 1989. A Companion to the Japanese Theater: Companies and People, the most up-to-date information available in English on the subject.
9Ortolani, "Shingeki: The Maturing New Drama of Japan," 174-178.
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Opera
Soon after the Meiji Restoration, the government began I 1 campaign for  the diffusion of western music, as a means of promoting the desired modernization of the country. At first, however,   western music did not find the same enthusiastic, reception which had greeted the introduction of other novelties from the West. A substantial change in the attitude of the new 1 generation began when, in 1898, the study of western music became a compulsory subject in all schools. A gradual familiarization with the new sounds and the new rhythms followed, leading eventually to the great diffusion of western 1 music in twentieth century Japan.
Operatic music and the singing of famous arias from classical operas were a part of this process, and eventually reached a wide audience. The history of opera production, however, shows a slow and difficult development, from its amateur beginnings in the 1890s to the sophisticated stagings of recent decades. High production costs, made more 1 prohibitive because of opera's restricted appeal and the lack of government support, always have been the main reason for the limited activity of Japanese opera companies.
Opera production was introduced to Japan in the excerpted performance of a work that took place in 1894 in Tokyo as part of a benefit program for the Japanese Red Cross: the first act of Gounod's Faust was performed by a group of foreign amateurs who sang the leading roles in collaboration with students of the Tokyo Ongaku Gakko
(Tokyo School of Music), who provided the chorus, and with the musicians of the Imperiul Household Ministry conducted by Franz Eckert (1852-1916).
In 1902 the Kageki Kcnkyukai (Opera Study Society) was formed by students of the same Tokyo School of Music and of the Imperial University. On July 23, 1903, this group sponsored the first complete opera performed in Japan, Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, which produced a loud echo in the Japanese music world and inspired Japanese composers to enter the new field of opera. The libretto was translated into Japanese for the occasion. Because of the lack of an orchestra the production had to make do with a simple piano accompaniment. The sets were prepared by students of the Bijutsu Gakko (Fine Arts School). The single performance incurred a huge financial loss and provoked a series of controversies which reached the Ministry of Education, with a consequent official warning to the School that discouraged the continuation of such pioneering opera activities.
The first attempt at a Japanese opera was Roei no yume (Dream in Camp, libretto and music by Kitamura Kisei), presented in 1905 at the major kabuki theatre of the time, the Kabukiza, between kabuki plays, on the same program. Kabuki actor Matsumoto Koshiro VII—employing traditional kabuki vocalization—performed the leading role of this operatic composition written in unaccompanied monotones with orchestral intermezzi. Koshiro was supported by kabuki actors who also recited their parts in kabuki style. Rather than an opera it was actually a play with spoken parts and connecting songs.
The shingeki pioneers, Tsubouchi Shoyo and Osanai Kaoru, were involved in the first phase of operatic development. In 1904 Tsubouchi published the first theoretical work about Japanese opera, the Shingakugekiron (Theory of the New Music Drama), in which he envisioned original Japanese operas free from imitation of foreign models and inspired by Japanese tradition. As an example of his theory he wrote the libretto for Tokoyami (Eternal Darkness, music by T5gi Tetteki), whose performance was the first sponsored by the Bungei Kyokai. The first opera greeted by Japanese critics as a successful fulfillment of Tsubouchi's ideal was Hagoromo (The Feather Robe, 1908, inspired by the
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homonymous «3 play, music by Komatsu Kôsaku). In addition* Osanai Kaoru arranged and staged Chikai no fioshi (The Star if the Oath, music by Yamada Kôsaku).
The opening in 1911 of the Teikoku Gekijô (Imperil) Theatre, often called Teigeki) with an opera department (begun in 1912) under the direction of the Italian Giovanni Vittorio Rossi offered new hopes for a development of operl in Japan. The reality, on the contrary, remained rather modem Only single acts, or abridged versions of light operas, w#ft 1 performed between plays in the fashion of typical kabiiki programming. The director of the opera department wn» actually a ballet master who had been primarily active in the field of operetta in London. In his tenure from 1912 to 19In he produced only some light opera/operettas such as Donizetti'! La Figlia deľ Reggimento and Planquette's Les Cloches Corneville. The production of serious classical opera at the Imperial Theatre was still far from being commercially ana • artistically viable;   an enormous effort would have been necessary to support the development of singers anď \ orchestras, not to mention audiences.
The task of popularizing operatic music and arias was accomplished by the   popular theatres in Asakusa between 1916 and 1920, when up to three theatres at a time win playing "opera," that is, a variety of mostly western-looking plays with music and songs. Together with operetta, selected f parts of the famous classical operas were also popularized I through the Asakusa stages.
The next important event in the history of classical opera was the nineteen day visit in 1919 of the Russian Opera from Vladivostok for nineteen days at the Imperial Theatre. For the first time Japanese audiences could witness fully staged productions of such works as Aida, Carmen, La Traviata, j Tosca, and Boris Godunov, with a singer of the caliber of the world famous soprano Bulskaja. The great success of these foreign guests inspired several more attempts to organize 1 Japanese performances of opera, but with sparse results.
Eventually, a series of radio programs of western music directed by Iba Takashi between 1927 and 1930—during which fifteen operas were broadcast with accurate introductions and with enormous audience success—helped greatly in creating an atmosphere in which the first important Japanese opera company was founded by the tenor Fujiwara Yoshie in 1934,
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The Fujiwara KagekUlan (Fujiwara Opera Company) has mrvived to the present time us probably the most important producer and promoter of serious opera—in spite of the many financial problems that have plagued its life as well as those of other opera companies such as the Nagato Miho Gekidan and the Nikikai Opera Company.
Despite the great progress in the diffusion of opera and in the level of artistry during recent decades, there is still no opera house in any of the big cities in Japan. The various companies must rent a theatre or a suitable hall for their performances.
In the post-war era a great number of the world's best opera ensembles have visited Tokyo, where every year at least one or two such groups usually perform to sold-out houses.
The Takarazuka Revue Company
A special place in the history of Japanese popular musical entertainment is occupied by the Takarazuka Revue Company, which for three quarters of a century has been a most successful and unique phenomenon in the Japanese performing arts world. The present average of four troupes of about one hundred performers each, all consisting of unmarried women, performing almost constantly in enormous theatres in Takarazuka (located in the Kyoto-Osaka area) and Tokyo, and on tour all over Japan, gives an idea of the scale of this enterprise.2
The founder, Kobayashi IchizS (1873-1957), had started his all-girl company in 1914 with the hope that it would evolve into a uniquely Japanese form of grand opera for large, popular audiences. His efforts were always directed at providing morally unobjectionable and financially affordable theatre entertainment for the average Japanese family. A very successful industrialist who also eventually climbed the political ladder, becoming Minister of Commerce and Industry, Kobayashi was a man of many large-scale initiatives, such as creating the "Terminal Culture;" that is, commercial development of terminals with huge restaurants, department stores, and mass entertainments near the new railroad lines he had planned; he founded, moreover, Toho Films, of which he was the president (Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and the popular
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Godzilla films were produced under his leadership). Mil genius for meeting the needs of the Japanese populace nlio guided him in changing a small, quiet town, Takarazuka, into a busy entertainment center, with a famous music school |M a three-thousand-seat Grand Theatre. He eventually adupivd his dream of grand opera to the reality of a more popular, extremely successful, and unique synthesis of revue/ operetta/musical theatre which over the decades won an important share of popular entertainment throughout the entirf 1 country.
Kobayashi was the founder and the soul of the famoui Music School—a convent-like training ground for thousands of Takarazuka. performers, which became a legend among Japan'! teenage girls, and is still highly respected and much in demand. He personally set the strict rules for the seilO (students, the name all Takarazuka girls share, even after they reach stardom) and made sure they would be closely observed, thus maintaining a deserved reputation of high moral standardi and thorough dedication.3
As a first step towards the establishment of his school, Kobayashi put together the Takarazuka Shotakai (Takarazuki Chorus), a group of sixteen girls aged twelve to sixteen who gave their first concert in 1913. It soon became the Takarazuka Shojo-Kageki Yosei Kai (Girls Opera Training Society), which debuted as an entertainment for the Takarazuka spa in 1914. This naive show concocted of fairy tale operettas and dances li now considered the first official performance of the Takarazuka girls.
During the early years the girls performed rather childish adaptations of nursery tales, such as Urashima Taw, and cut-and-paste stories from foreign sources, many of which were prepared by Kobayashi himself. Their success was based on the charm of innocence and inexperience, which exercised a surprisingly magnetic attraction on steadily growing audiences.
Additions of theatre professionals to the staff of the School resulted in a profound change in the training, which produced accomplished performers ready for more ambitious programs. The great successes in the Osaka-Kyoto region were extended to the capital, with performances at the Imperial Theatre in 1918.
Miniem Mu\li «('»./ Ihinre I hemic
In 1919 the Sh6jo-Kageki Yosei Kai became the Takarazuka Ongaku Kageki Gakko (Takarazuka Music Opera School), which has served to the present time—under the simpler name of Music School—as the only training ground for girls who aspire to become stars in the Takarazuka company. In 1923 the upper age of the girls admitted to the school was changed from fifteen to nineteen, thus making possible the transition from basically childish programs to adult and professional-looking shows.
In 1924 Kobayashi built in Takarazuka the largest theatre in the Orient, the Daigekijo or Grand Theatre, seating three thousand (the previous largest theatre in Japan had been the Imperial Theatre, seating sixteen hundred). Soon the need for new programming was felt, and the writer-director Kishida Tatsuya was sent abroad for inspiration. He came back in 1927 with the idea of adapting the French revue. The first show in the new style was Mon Paris, a series of numbers tied together by the trip of a honeymoon couple stopping in exotic places such as India, Egypt, Shanghai and, of course, Paris. The chorus line now counted eighty girls, scenery and costumes were lavish and sparkling, and the splendidly glossy French-style revue—tamed by a typical Takarazuka sense of family style decency—conquered the fantasy and hearts of innumerable full houses. A new era for the Takarazuka a la Parisienne had begun.
The 1930 trip of Shirai Tetsuo to New York, London, and Paris brought to Takarazuka the latest techniques of Broadway musicals. The result was a stunning success of the revue Parisette which shared with enormous audiences in all major Japanese cities the lessons learntTrom such masters as Maurice Chevalier, Josephine Baker, and the Ziegfield shows; however, nudity and sex were conspicuous by their absence. While never relinquishing the principles of popular family entertainment the Takarazuka company created a formula that has been the source of constant success: an eclectic composite of romantic musical comedy and revue, a mixture of western and Japanese themes and styles, with a heavy emphasis on dance, large-scale choreography with the participation of enormous chorus lines, glitter and gorgeous costumes, and all the trimmings that today are usually identified with the Las Vegas style—minus an emphasis on sex, which is carefully avoided and substituted by a subtler eroticism.
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The building in 1934 of the new Tokyo Tnkiirn/ukl Theatre, which was followed during the next decade by new theatres in Yokohama, Kyoto, Nagoya, Shizuokn, anil Hiroshima seemed for a while to establish Takarazukn ai | kind of national popular theatre of Japan, a dream shuttered by the war.
Success was not limited to Japan. Pre-World War II toUfl abroad, both to Europe and America, were greeted with general enthusiasm   except for the New York performances] during a time of political tension preceding the beginning of the conflict between the two countries.
The war in China and World War II saw the company entertaining the Japanese soldiers in Asia and at home with patriotic productions exalting the war effort. The company] dropped the word "girls" (shojo) from its name and became the Takarazuka Kageki, (literally Takarazuka Opera), a misleading but official name which is reflected in the logos including the English initials TOC, for Takarazuka Opera Company.
As soon as the war ended the Grand Theatre in Takarazuka was soon repaired; it reopened in 1946. The Takarazuka Theatre in Tokyo, on the contrary, was taken over by the occupation authorities who turned it into a G.I, entertainment center until 1955, when it reopened as the Tokyo center for Takarazuka revues.
The success of the post-war revues was immense, probably because they provided a bright moment of escape in a particularly hard time. A Takarazuka style Carmen had an enthusiastic reception, and was followed by a series of hits, among which those worth remembering include a spectacular Gubijin (The Beautiful Gu, 1951, located in imperial China) and Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji, 1952). The repertory of the Takarazuka revues shows that there is hardly any area of successful world drama, novel, opera, operetta, ballet, musical comedy, and so on which has not been adapted for the Takarazuka stage, from Hamlet to Tristan and Isolde, from Turandol to The Arabian Nights, from Coppelia to The Merry Widow, from West Side Story to Carousel and so forth, to the recent (1987) Me and My Girl and a version of the Dracula story.5
In 1958 Emperor Hirohito and the imperial family attended a Takarazuka benefit performance, and starting in the late fifties a number of foreign dignitaries, including royal
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personages, visited the 'Inkara/uka shows during their stay in Japan. Coveted official recognition of the artistry reached by Takarazuka performers was achieved in 1958, when for the flnt time the prestigious Purple Ribbon Medal of Merit (Shijuhosho) and the Fine Arts Festival Prize (Geijutsusaisho) were awarded to Takarazuka stars. Many other important awards were earned in the following years. Recognition came also in the form of favorable reviews by major world critics on the occasion of successful tours abroad, for example during the recent performances at Radio City Hall in New York City (1989).
Kobayashi Ichizo died in 1958. To ensure the continuity of his company after his death—despite the enormous production expenses and the relatively low cost of tickets—Kobayashi placed the fiscal responsibility for the school and the productions in the hands of the trustees of the prosperous Hankyu railway system, who always have taken good care of the Takarazuka Company's finances.
At Kobayashi's funeral over three hundred artists filled the stage of the Grand Theatre in Takarazuka, and admirers in the thousands honored the man who had pursued the dream of making theatrical entertainment available to everyone. His dream, however, reached only a section of the general population. Apart from a small percentage, the audiences of the Takarazuka revues have become almost exclusively female, the majority of whom are very young.6 The typical Takarazuka fan has become almost a synonym for a dreamy teenage girl, infatuated with the glossy fantasy-world of an otokoyaku star (an actress playing male roles), and romantically sharing the ideals of the Takarazuka girls, kiyoku, tadashiku, utsukushiku (be pure, be right, be beautiful).
Revue, Operetta, Miscellaneous Entertainments
The great success of the Takarazuka revues did not long remain without competition.7 Only three years after the first performance of the Takarazuka girls, the Tokyo Shojo Kageki (Tokyo Girls Opera, later renamed the Osaka Girls Opera, abbreviated as OSK) started its performances about six months before the Tokyo debut of the Takarazuka company. In 1928,
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Juponsu- theatre
Modem Mu\i< ,in,l Diiihy Theatre
the powerful Shochiku organization joined the field wiih fhi Shochiku Kageki Dan (ShSchiku Opera Company, usually abbreviated as SKD), which, until World War II, was almnil as successful as the Takarazuka. It was characterized By sophisticated dances and lavishly decorated stages, with liberal use of the latest mechanical technology for special effeell, After World War II, however, only Takarazuka succeeded Ifl recapturing a wide following, while OSK and SKD reduced their activity to three or four programs a year. The SKD uied to perform, until its closing in 1982, at the Kokusai GekijS In Asakusa, catering to an audience mostly of adults of both sexei from mixed social backgrounds, very different from { Takarazuka's audiences swarming with teenage girls froffl upper and middle class families. Since 1982 the SKD has given some performances at the Kabukiza and other Tokyo theatreij it has been, however, recently inactive because of financial problems.
The efforts of ballet master Rossi at the Imperial Theatre resulted in the production of western operettas performed by Japanese artists between 1912 and 1916. When the Opera Department was closed, Rossi tried to continue the production of operettas at a small Theatre, the Royal-kan; after two years, however, he had to give up, and went back to London.
Very successful,   on the contrary, was the so-called ! Asakusa Opera (1919-1923), performed at up to four Asakusa theatres at the same time  with programs changing every ten days. Broad concessions to popular taste produced a genre ' which is difficult to define, but which certainly made the arias of famous operettas and classical operas well known all over ! Japan.
The epoch of the Asakusa Opera was brought to a sudden end by the Tokyo earthquake of 1923, which destroyed the theatres. For a while Asakusa was dormant as a theatrical center, until a revue theatre, the Casino Folly (Kajino Fori), opened in 1929. It introduced to Japan a popularized and magnified night club-style revue based on low comedy and the sex-appeal of scantily clad girls. The most remarkable comedian of this genre was Enoken (Enomoto Ken'ichi, 1904-1970), who became very famous, while the erotic shows found a very large following, largely because of their escapist values for depression audiences. Enoken later joined the Toho company  and was part of the development of the Nichigeki
Dancing Team (NCT), which made the new theatre, Nihon (Jekijo (usually called Nichigeki, built in 1933), famous because of the popular Nichigeki Shows, partly inspired by the presentations at the glamorous Radio City Music Hall of New York.
After World War II Enoken's effort to revive the revue were unsuccessful. For a while the large popular adult audience was preoccupied by strip shows, which developed a following disproportionate to that of any other country; at one point, they were seriously considered by Japanese theatre historians as a significant chapter in the history of the nation's popular entertainment. The major centers of such sex shows were the Teito Theatre in Shinjuku and the Nichigeki Music Hall in Yurakucho.
u.ito and the Phenomenon of Circularity
Among the contemporary Japanese contributions to theatrical arts a post-modern dance genre, buto,8 deserves a brief mention because of its international influence which goes beyond the field of dance. The pioneers of butb are Ono Kazuo, who is still (1989) active as the grand old man of butb, and an avant-garde dancer, Hijikata Tatsumi (who died in 1986 at 57 years of age). In the late fifties they created a new type of dance which had its roots in Hijikata's dadaistic and surrealistic experiments, and in a need to express in a subversive manner the feeling of anguish and terror experienced during the wartime destruction of Japan. There are some common characteristics in the variety of buto artists and companies: the intensity of training, the surrealistic and hallucinatory atmosphere of unconventional, overcontrolled, and mostly slow movements, near-naked bodies painted white, shaved heads, rolled-upwards eyes, wide-open mouths, and the presentation of several spectacular outdoor pieces, such as the one performed by the Dai Rakuda Kan company, in which the dancers are lowered by ropes from high above while expressing a slow unfolding from a fetal position.
Buto, like the achievements of Suzuki Tadashi in the formation of actors, presents an example of the phenomenon of "circularity" in present-day Japanese performing arts. Educated by western teachers who had been deeply impressed
Japanese Theaire
and influenced by the classical theatre arts of Japan, young Japanese artists trained in western performing arts, while m the same time "rediscovering" the treasures of their own traditions. The most creative artists went back to the sourcei of their Japanese training, but only after the western experience} had left an indelible mark on them.
Some results of the new synthesis are of the higheil caliber and allow the hope that, in general, the encounter between East and West may become an important factor in thi improvement of the performing arts during the next century.*
Modem Mini, ami Dance Theatre
NOTES
'Komiya, Japanese Music and Drama in the Meiji Era, 499.
'Berlin, Takarazuka: A History and Descriptive Analysis of the All-Female Japanese Performance Company, is the major source for this subject in English.
ilbid., Appendix 3, 327-328, provides a translation of the regulations for seito entering the organization.
*Ibid., Appendix 1, 311-312, provides a list of tours abroad.
*Ibid., Appendix 4, Table 4, 329-344, provides a list of plays based on western sources and other familiar material.
6Ibid., Appendix 2, 313-326, provides a survey of fans and audiences.
7 Ibid., 128-129.
8Vicki Sanders, "Dancing and the Dark Soul of Japan: An Aesthetic Analysis of Buto," 148-162 and Maria Pia D'Orazi, "Kazuo Ohno: Alle radici del Butö," 121-148.
9Ortolani, "II teatro occidentale alia ricerca dell'energia profonda, «rilassata e composita» dell'oriente", 192-194.
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