Theater in japan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Illustration of a Japanese kabuki performance

Under with Japanese theater is understood primarily, but not exclusively traditional forms of Japanese drama as Noh and Kabuki . Japan and in particular Tōkyō also offer a wide range of modern theater plays, including those in western tradition.

Traditional forms

Traditional Japanese theater is divided into four formative forms: Nō, Kyōgen , Kabuki and Bunraku , the puppet theater.

Nō and Kyōgen

The earliest known Kyōgen pieces date from the 8th century. At that time, Kyōgen was listed as a filler between the acts of a no-play. It took up the plot of the Nō performance and built a bridge to contemporary issues with stylistic means of farce or slapstick . In contrast to the Nō, the actors of the Kyōgen only wore masks when the role really required a different appearance. Up until 1450, both men and women were allowed to perform Kyōgen.

Kabuki

The most famous form of Japanese theater is the kabuki. One reason for its fame are possibly the wild costumes and the depicted sword fights, which were fought with real blades until the end of the 17th century (around 1680). Kabuki originated as an antithesis to the No. It wanted to grab viewers with more lively and contemporary acts. The first known performance of a kabuki piece took place in 1603.

In the course of time, Kabuki, which was originally intended as a new, freer form of acting, became an equally highly stylized art form, not unlike the Nō.

Interestingly, the popular theater company Gekidan Shinkansen from Tōkyō insists that their works conform to the pure form of Kabuki by performing historical roles in a very modern, loud and alienated way. Whether their performances are actually kabuki in the classic sense remains a controversial question, not least one of personal taste.

Bunraku

Dolls and thus bunraku can be found on Japanese stages as long as the no-play. Medieval sources report that dolls were also used in the actual Nō. The puppets of the bunraku are about one meter to one meter twenty tall and are each led by several puppeteers who, in contrast to puppet theater in western tradition, are visible to the audience. The puppeteers who move the limbs are dressed entirely in black, while the puppeteers for the head are colorfully dressed. Music and singing are widespread in Bunraku and the Shamisen player usually directs the play.

Kitano Takeshi brought an impression of the Bunraku theater to the western media landscape in 2002 with his film Dolls , which begins with a Bunraku scene and ends in one.

Modern theater

As a modern, Japanese form of theater, the Shingeki (new theater) developed at the beginning of the twentieth century based on the model of western realistic theater, which used a natural game and contemporary themes and thus again created a counterpoint to the strongly stylized conventions of Kabuki and Nō .

In the post-war period, modern theater experienced a dramatic surge in growth and new, creative works introduced unspent, aesthetic concepts that revolutionized established, modern theater such as the Shōgekijō-Undō, the small theater movement. As a challenge to realistic, western-style psychological theater in Shingeki, which focused on "tragic, historical developments", young dramatists began to break more and more with widely accepted methods such as conventional stage space. A new movement called Angura (Andaguraundo, from the English underground), put their performances in tents, on streets and in the open country, or pushed the whole thing to extremes by having individual scenes take place in very different places in Tōkyō .

The actions became increasingly complex, were designed with sequences of the game in the game, made many leaps in time in quick succession and mixed reality with fantasy. The dramatic structure was dissolved in favor of the actors, who were given greater weight and often used a series of masks to represent different personalities.

In another movement, playwrights also went back to using tried and tested stylistic devices on the stage, which had been perfected in the No and Kabuki, to implement their own new ideas. For example, storytellers with English language skills were used to give an international audience access to the dramatic content.

Well-known Japanese playwrights of the 1980s are Kara Jūrō , Shimizu Kunio , and Betsuyaku Minoru , who all worked with permanent ensembles. During this time, stage technology and acting were very refined and differentiated, but the play lost its critical willingness to experiment compared to the theater of the post-war period.

Tadashi Suzuki developed a training method for his actors that combined concepts of the avant-garde with classical elements of Nō and Kabuki. This approach developed into a driving, creative force in Japanese and international theater of the eighties. Another very original mélange of Eastern and Western concepts was found in the production Nastasya , based on Dostoyevsky's The Idiot , in the Bandō Tamasaburō , a famous onnagata (male performer of female roles) of the Kabuki both the role of the prince and his Fiance played.

Shōgekijō

In the 1960s there were also more pieces of the Shōgekijō, or literally, the small play . This term was generally used to describe pieces that were performed by amateur drama groups for "everyone" and that were intended for entertainment rather than artistic pretensions.

Some of the philosophically oriented playwrights and directors of the time are still active today. Including Noda Hideki , Kogami Shoji and Keralino Sandorovich (pseudonym of a Japanese playwright).

Well-known groups of the Shōgekijō-Undō are, for example, Nylon 100 , Gekidan Shinkansen , Tokyo Sunshine Boys or Halaholo Shangrila .

Western theater in Japan

Many plays of western origin, from the theater of ancient Greece to William Shakespeare , Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Samuel Beckett , are also performed in Tōkyō. An estimated 3,000 theater performances take place in the Japanese capital each year. This makes Tōkyō one of the world's largest centers of theater culture.

The opening of the replica of the Globe Theater was celebrated by flying in a British ensemble performing all of Shakespeare's works, while Japanese ensembles reinterpreting some of Shakespeare's plays, including Hamlet and King Lear . The Globe Theater in Shin-Ōkubo is currently used primarily by Johnny's Entertainment or for the work and marketing of Japanese pop idols in the acting sector.

Yukio Ninagawa , an internationally known Japanese director and playwright, was often inspired by elements from the works of Shakespeare. In 1995 he performed "Shakespeare Tenpo 12Nen", an interpretation of the popular British Shakespeare Condensed , in which all of Shakespeare's works were condensed into a playing time of just two hours. Well-known Japanese actors such as Natsuki Mari and Karasawa Toshiaki took part in this project .

swell

  • Japan Study by the Federal Research Division in the Library of Congress (English)

literature

  • (2013): Mundt, Lisa: "Disobedience, the artist's first obligation - 'Fukushima' as a turning point in the contemporary Japanese theater and performance scene". In: Lisette Gebhardt, Steffi Richter (ed.): Reader "Fukushima". Translations, commentaries, essays . Berlin: EB-Verlag Dr. Brandt, pp. 101-125. ISBN 978-3-86893-103-7

Web links