Asian Theater

B

Japan

Traditional Japanese theater can be traced back about 1300 years. It includes some of the longest continually performed genres in Asia, most notably the nō drama. See also Japanese Drama.

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Origins and Overview

The Kojiki (712 ad), one of the oldest written records of Japanese myth and history, provides a mythical account of the country’s first theater performance. According to the Kojiki, the sun goddess Amaterasu had hidden in a cave. To lure her out, another goddess, Ame-no-Uzume, danced with lowered skirt and bared breasts, feet pounding on an overturned barrel. The gods’ raucous laughter at this performance enticed Amaterasu to peek out, restoring life-giving light to the world, and theater was born. Among the earliest genres to emerge was kagura, in which entranced priestesses or masked villagers performed celebratory dances at shrines of the Shinto religion. Nonreligious genres included sangaku and sarugaku (“monkey dances”), entertainments that included skits, circus acts, and acrobatics.

Performing arts imported from China and Korea from the 7th to 10th centuries profoundly influenced Japanese theater. In 612 Korean performer Mimashi (or Mimaji) introduced gigaku, a masked music-drama from Chinese Buddhism. Gigaku was supplanted a century later by bugaku, a masked theater with Chinese and Korean origins. Bugaku is accompanied by slow, elegant music, called gagaku, produced by drums, gong, mouth organ, and flute. Bugaku’s three-part rhythmic structure, provided by gagaku, influenced all subsequent performance.

The aristocratic theater genres of nō and kyōgen developed in the 1300s, during Japan’s domination by the warrior class, or samurai. Kabuki, a popular form of secular theater, and ningyō joruri (usually called bunraku), a form of puppetry, flowered without foreign influence from 1603 to 1868. After 1868 the Westernization of Japan fostered new forms: shimpa, shingeki, and the all-female takarazuka. The atomic blasts that ended World War II in 1945 prompted a search for Japanese identity and the creation of avant-garde genres such as angura and butō.

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Major Genres and Their Development

Nō, which is still popular today, was pioneered in the 14th century by Zeami Motokiyo, an actor in his father’s theater troupe. Under the patronage of Yoshimitsu, a shogun (military dictator), Zeami lived at court and transformed the sarugaku that his father performed into poetic, elegant, Buddhist-inspired nō. Zeami wrote many plays and treatises on nō performance and composition. (Nine major treatises have been translated as On the Art of the Nō Drama.) The major aesthetic concepts of nō include yūgen (dark, mysterious, sad beauty) and hana (flower), alluding to the freshness and skill for which actors must strive. About 250 nō plays survive, most of them written after Zeami’s death.

The nō stage is a roofed, wooden square with an entrance bridge. The audience sits on two sides of the stage. There are no stage sets and few props. Visible musicians play drums and flute, and a seated chorus chants narration and some dialogue. Performances feature mime, dance, and poetry. Some of the actors wear small, elegant masks. In a typical nō story, the characters seek Buddhist release from earthly attachments.

Kyōgen (“mad words”) are comic, fast-paced prose plays performed in conjunction with nō plays. Many plots feature the victory of clever servants or downtrodden wives over pompous masters. Mime is central. Some 260 kyōgen scripts survive, among them the representative scripts (most kyōgen scripts are anonymous) Bōshibari (Tied to a Pole) and Busu (Sweet Poison). Traditionally, five nō and four kyōgen were performed together and lasted all day. Today typical performances include two nō and one kyōgen. Actors of both genres are male, and most are the sons of actors. Each actor performs his genre exclusively.

Kabuki and bunraku are popular arts associated with an urban merchant class and are not influenced by foreign genres. They developed between the 17th century, when relations with foreign powers were forbidden, and the late 19th century, when Japan reopened to the rest of the world. During this time Japanese culture thrived in total isolation, with society structured on strict Confucian models.

Kabuki is said to have originated in a performance by Okuni, a female dancer-priestess, about 1600. Wearing male garb and an exotic Christian cross, Okuni performed sensual dances and skits called kabuki (meaning “dangerously off-balance”) in a dry river bed in the city of Kyōto. Male and female performers, often dressed as the opposite sex, soon became wildly popular. In 1629 women were banned from the stage; the young boys who replaced them were banned in 1652. As a result, the onnagata (female impersonator) was created.

Kabuki’s daylong plays, composed of numerous episodes, feature spectacular fights and dances, quick costume changes, heroic sacrifices, and star-crossed lovers. To evade censors, playwrights disguised their satires of contemporary events by giving them historical settings. Acting, makeup, costumes, and scenery range from realistic to elaborately stylized and exaggerated. The wide stage used by kabuki features the hanamichi (runway) extending through the audience.

Bunraku also appeared in the 1600s. It is performed by realistic puppets about 1 m (about 3 ft) tall. The main characters are each manipulated by three black-robed men who move in choreographed unison to create the puppets’ lifelike behavior. A single actor recites all dialogue and narration onstage, accompanied by a shamisen (three-stringed lute). Bunraku shares scripts and acting styles with kabuki. Many plays feature tragic conflicts of honor and desire. Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Japan’s finest dramatist, wrote about 130 plays for bunraku and kabuki. One of his masterpieces is Sonezaki Shinjū (1703; The Love Suicides at Sonezaki). The play Kanadehon Chūshingura (1748; The Treasury of Loyal Retainers), by Takeda Izumo, Miyoshi Shoraku, and Namiki Senryu, represents the supreme expression of loyalty, duty, and bushido (samurai spirit).

In 1868 supporters of the emperor regained control of Japan, ousting the shoguns that had dominated the country and ending 250 years of Japanese isolation from the rest of the world. The country rushed to modernize, discarding tradition (although major genres survived) and creating new forms of theater. The first partially Western drama was shimpa (“new school”), which included adaptations of Western classics and of melodramatic, patriotic plays that rebelled against tradition in subject matter and performance style. Kawakami Otojiro and his wife, Sada Yakko, were among the foremost performers of shimpa. While touring North America and Europe from 1899 to 1901, audiences compared Sada to renowned French actor Sarah Bernhardt. As the first modern Japanese actress, Sada’s influence helped overturn the 1629 ban on female performers.

Shingeki (“new theater”) fully resembles Western theater. Tsubouchi Shoyo, one of the originators of shingeki, translated the complete works of English playwright William Shakespeare. He also wrote plays and in 1906 founded Bungei Kyōkai (Literary Arts Society). Osanai Kaoru, cofounder of shingeki, established two theater companies that played a vital role in spreading shingeki. These are Jiyū Gekijō (Free Theater), founded in 1909, and Tsukiji Shōgekijo (Tsukiji Little Theater), founded in 1924. Major shingeki playwrights include Kishida Kunio, who wrote a realistic play called Sawa-shi no futari musume (1935; The Two Daughters of Mr. Sawa, 1989), and Kinoshita Junji, whose symbolic, poetic play Yūzuru (1949; Twilight Crane, 1956) is based on a Japanese folktale.

In 1914 takarazuka, an all-female form of theater, was established to offer discipline and artistic training to young women. It has evolved into a hugely popular entertainment presented by rigorously trained performers. Typical of its performances are musical versions of Western classics such as Gone With the Wind, Broadway shows, kabuki adaptations, and Las Vegas-style extravaganzas.

After Japan’s devastating defeat in World War II (1939-1945), Japanese artists struggled to find a new sense of meaning. Playwright Mishima Yukio summarized these conflicts in Kindai nōgakushū (1956; Five Modern Nō Plays, 1957). Butō was created as a nonverbal dance theater that sought to express the “dark soul of Japan.” Founded by Hijikata Tatsumi and Ono Kazuo, butō features nearly naked dancers painted white who writhe on stage. Angura (from the English word underground) flourished in the 1960s and the 1970s. It combined street theater, spontaneous activity, and in some cases anti-American political protest (see Performance Art). Kara Jūrō’s socially conscious Jōkyō Gekijō (Situation Theater), founded in 1963, and Terayama Shūji’s experimental Tenjō Sajiki (Peanut Gallery), established in 1967, are two of the most important angura groups.

Japan’s major theater artists of the late 20th century include director Ninagawa Yukio, who directed a wide variety of plays, and director and theorist Suzuki Tadashi, who created the so-called Suzuki method of actor training. The Suzuki method is based on lower body strength, with an emphasis on the feet. Important contemporary female playwright-directors include Kisaragi Koharu and Kishida Rio.

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Korea

In Korea, theater probably began with official ceremonies and native religious rituals. These were modified in the 7th century by Buddhist genres, which probably came from China. Confucianism later exerted a strong influence on Korean theater.

Puppetry in Korea dates from the 7th century. In kkoktu kaksi, traditional Korean puppetry, a puppet master recites lines to musical accompaniment while manipulating one puppet at a time. Holding the puppet body in his hands, the puppeteer moves its stiff arms using strings pulled from below. The plots of puppet plays are comic and satirical.

Sandae-guk (“mountain performance”) is a generic term for masked folk dramas. Until 1634 the Confucian-dominated royal court sponsored official performances of masked dramas. After 1634, however, performers were no longer supported and they left the court, bringing theater to the rural areas. There are many local varieties, but all share common features. Sandae-guk is traditionally performed outdoors by torchlight and lasts all night. Performers wear colorful costumes and grotesque masks of dried gourds or paper, with cloth head coverings. Sandae-guk also features complex dances drawn from shamanism and songs based on folk music. Its improvised episodes incorporate bawdy jokes and poetry.

Two other significant theater genres in Korea are hahoe pyolsin-gut and p’ansori. Hahoe pyolsin-gut, a masked folk drama from Hahoe village, occurs once per decade, on the 15th day of the first lunar month. It makes use of sacred and ancient carved, wooden masks. Its improvised stories generally satirize corrupt monks and immoral or stupid officials. In p’ansori a solo performer of either sex sings, recites, and mimes stories to drumming, using an intentionally hoarse voice. P’ansori is popular in live performances as well as on radio and television. Today, the Seoul Theater Festival supports new work in South Korea. North Korea’s government encourages theatrical activity that reflects its socialist ideology and goals.

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Theater in Southeast Asia

The countries in Southeast Asia with the strongest theater traditions are Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Dance-dramas and puppetry are extremely important art forms in Southeast Asia. Performances often last several hours, or even all night. In some areas, Chinese and Indian influence is pronounced.