Skip to content
Home/ Kabuki Plays on Stage. Volume 1: Brilliance and Bravado, 1697-1766
Kabuki Plays on Stage. Volume 1: Brilliance and Bravado, 1697-1766

Kabuki Plays on Stage. Volume 1: Brilliance and Bravado, 1697-1766

by Kabuki Plays on Stage. Volume 1: Brilliance and Bravado, 1697-1766
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780824824037 University of Hawaii Press

Kabuki Plays On Stage represents a monumental achievement in Japanese theatre studies, being the first collection of kabuki play translations to be published in twenty-five years. Fifty-one plays, published in four volumes, vividly trace kabuki's changing relations to Japanese society during the premodern era.

Volume 1 consists of thirteen plays that showcase early kabuki's scintillating and boisterous styles of performance and illustrates the contrasting dramatic techniques cultivated by actors in Edo (Tokyo) and Kamigata (Osaka and Kyoto). The twelve plays translated in Volume 2 cover a brief period, but one that saw important developments in kabuki architecture, acting, dance, and the manipulation of characters and themes.

As the series title indicates, the plays were translated to capture the vivacity of performances on stage. The translations, each accompanied by a thorough introduction that contextualizes the play, are based not only on published texts, but performance scripts and the study of the plays as they are performed in theatres today. Each volume is lavishly illustrated with rare woodblock prints in full color of Tokugawa- and Meiji-period productions as well as color and black-and-white photographs of contemporary performances.

Published with the assistance of the Nippon Foundation.

About the author

Product details

BrandUniversity of Hawaii Press
Pub dateFeb 28, 2002
ISBN-100824824032
ISBN-139780824824037
Hardcover408.0 pages
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions9.94 × 1.17 × 7.68 in
Weight3 lb
Last updated 2026-08-14 21:16
$52.28
In stock soon — order now to reserve your copy
Delivery by Monday, September 14, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from Drama | Asian | Japanese
See all
Japanese No Dramas
Japanese No Dramas
$13.47
Chushingura (the Treasury of Loyal Retainers): A Puppet Play
Chushingura (the Treasury of Loyal Retainers): A Puppet Play
$34.95
Three Plays by Kobo Abe
Abe, Kōbō
$127.35
Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu
Chikamatsu
$37.26
Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Drama
<p>This anthology is the first to survey the full range of modern Japanese drama and make available Japan's best and most representative twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century works in one volume. It opens with a comprehensive introduction to Meiji-period drama and follows with six chronological sections: "The Age of Taisho Drama"&#x3b; The Tsukiji Little Theater and Its Aftermath"&#x3b; "Wartime and Postwar Drama"&#x3b; "The 1960s and Underground Theater"&#x3b; "The 1980s and Beyond"&#x3b; and "Popular Theater," providing a complete history of modern Japanese theater for students, scholars, instructors, and dramatists.</p><p>The collection features a mix of original and previously published translations of works, among them plays by such writers as Masamune Hakucho (<em>The Couple Next Door</em>), Enchi Fumiko (<em>Restless Night in Late Spring</em>), Morimoto Kaoru (<em>A Woman's Life</em>), Abe Kobo (<em>The Man Who Turned into a Stick</em>), Kara Juro (<em>Two Women</em>), Terayama Shuji (<em>Poison Boy</em>), Noda Hideki (<em>Poems for Sale</em>), and Mishima Yukio (<em>The Sardine Seller's Net of Love</em>). Leading translators include Donald Keene, J. Thomas Rimer, M. Cody Poulton, John K. Gillespie, Mari Boyd, and Brian Powell. Each section features an introduction to the developments and character of the period, notes on the plays' productions, and photographs of their stage performances. The volume complements any study of modern Japanese literature and modern drama in China, Korea, or other Asian or contemporary Western nations.</p>
$231.30
Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams: Twenty Plays from the Nō Tradition
Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams: Twenty Plays from the Nō Tradition
$162.00