Book Review: Japanese Plays – Classic Noh, Kyogen And Kabuki Works

Nothing reflects the beauty of life as much as Japanese theatre!

The original Introduction gives a fairly detailed explanation of Noh, Kyōgen and Kabuki though there isn’t much in the way of explanations of each of the plays’ individual origins, historical context, or development, either in the Introduction or in the rest of the book at the beginning of each play, the intention perhaps to preserve the book in its original form. It would however perhaps have been helpful to provide some sort of reference material in say a selective bibliography, even if only for the most important plays.

Although this isn’t provided in the book’s current form research on the Internet would make it relatively easy to cross reference the plays on line to find more information even if the Internet is something that wasn’t available when the book was originally published in 1934. For example

Meiji Era Kabuki: Three Shintomiza Tsuji Banzuke Part Three – 1912

Third and final part of the Meji Era Kabuki series by Kabuki collector and researcher Trevor Skingle!

The performance date places the performance this tsuji banzuke advertised on 8th February 1912, the last year, 46, of the Meiji era, which ended that same year with the death of Emperor Meiji on 30th July 1912, which had been a time of major changes in Japanese society. The developing Japanese fascination with photography and ‘bromides’ as they were called was reflected in the growing numbers of Kabuki images that became available and their collectors, usually rendered as postcards as is evidenced in those for

Meiji Era Kabuki: Three Shintomiza Tsuji Banzuke Part Two – 1899

Second in a three-part series by Kabuki collector and researcher Trevor Skingle!

Having adopted the Western calendar in 1873 the turn of the century was on the horizon in Japan. Many changes had taken place in the previous century, not least some pivotal ones for Kabuki.

In 1872, with the ending of the Tokugawa prohibitions on the location of the Kabuki Theatres, following the lead of Morita Kanya XII (the owner of the Shintomiza) the Kabuki theatres had