Shakespeare and the Japanese Stage

by Edited by Takashi Sasayama , J. R. Mulryne , Margaret Shewring

• ISBN13: 9780521470438
• ISBN10: 0521470439
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-03-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In this book, originally published in 1999, leading Shakespeare scholars from Japan and the West broke new ground by studying the interaction of Japanese and Western conceptions of Shakespeare, and the assimilation of Shakespeare into richly traditional theatre practice. The first part deals with key twentieth-century moments in the production of Shakespeare, including the work of world-famous Japanese directors such as Ninagawa, Suzuki and Noda, while the second part considers parallels and differences between Japanese and western theatre over a longer timespan, focusing on the relationship of Shakespeare to traditional Japanese Noh, Kabuki, Bunraku and Kyogen. Additional features include full-colour illustrations, a comprehensive chronology of Shakespeare performances in Japan and the English text of a celebrated Kyogen adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vii
List of contributors	x
Preface	xi
Introduction	1	(14)
J. R. Mulryne
Part I Japanese Shakespeare in performance
The rebirth of Shakespeare in Japan: from the 1960s to the 1990s	15	(23)
Akihiko Senda
Ryuta Minami
One man's Hamlet in 1911 Japan: the Bungei Kyokai production in the Imperial Theatre	38	(15)
Brian Powell
Koreya Senda and political Shakespeare	53	(18)
Dennis Kennedy
J. Thomas Rimer
The perils and profits of interculturalism and the theatre art of Tadashi Suzuki	71	(23)
J. R. Mulryne
Hideki Noda's Shakespeare: the languages of performance	94	(16)
Margaret Shewring
Japanese Shakespeare and English reviewers	110	(14)
Tetsuo Kishi
Directing King Lear in Japanese translation	124	(17)
Tetsuo Anzai
Part II Shakespeare and the traditional Japanese stage
Preface to the Japanese translation of Renaissance Self-Fashioning	141	(4)
Stephen Greenblatt
Tragedy and emotion: Shakespeare and Chikamatsu	145	(14)
Takashi Sasayama
Conflicting authorities: the canonization of Zeami and Shakespeare	159	(17)
Gerry Yokota-Murakami
Shakespearean drama and the Noh: theatrum mundi and nothingness	176	(10)
Izumi Momose
Tradition and the Bunraku adaptation of The Tempest	186	(11)
Minoru Fujita
The performance of gendered identity in Shakespeare and Kabuki	197	(17)
Yoko Takakuwa
Kyogenising Shakespeare/Shakespeareanising Kyogen	214	(12)
Yasunari Takahashi
The Braggart Samurai: a Kyogen adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor	226	(17)
Yasunari Takahashi
Part III Afterword
A playgoer's journey from Shakespeare to Japanese classical theatre and back	243	(14)
Robert Hapgood
Part IV
Chronological table of Shakespeare productions in Japan, 1866-1994	257	(75)
Ryuta Minami
Notes	332	(18)
Index	350