“Katari” holds an important function in the traditional Japanese theatre. But the word could be rendered into English as story-telling, narrative, narration, or even monologue. In fact, “katari” has been used in different senses on different occasions, and thus the discussion on “katari” has often become confusing in the theatre scholarship in Japan.

In this special issue on “Katari and Theatre” we examine the various functions of “katari” in theatre, both Western and Japanese, traditional and modern. We hope that nine articles and one research note included here will make some contribution to the future discussion on “katari” in general.

The traditional Japanese drama includes in itself a special form of narrative, which has been conceptualized as “katari”. The narrative element in European drama, on the other hand, does not seem to have ever been theorized. The story-telling by Nathan in Act III of Lessing's Nathan the Wise is one of the most famous examples of the narrative element in European drama history. But Nathan's story-telling is not separate or independent from the other parts of the play. On the contrary, it underscores the whole action of the drama. Schiller gives us similar examples, which function as an organic part of the dramatic action in the play. This is a characteristic of the narrative element in European drama, quite different from Japanese “katari”.

August Wilson commits himself to the task of writing a chronicle of African American life in the twentieth century. He finds fertile resources in the black oral tradition. In fact, through characters in his plays, he tells the history of his own ancestors in a manner similar to African tribal story-telling.

In Fences, Wilson traces three generations of an African American family, the Maxsons. The protagonist, Troy Maxson, tells long stories about the racial discrimination and exploitation he has suffered. He improvises stories freely and mixes facts and fictions. Wilson also uses songs, another important element of African American tradition, to be integrated in the play. It serves as a kind of metaphor for the black cultural identity. The present paper analyzes those aspects of Wilson's story-telling in his most popular play, Fences.

While ‘shingeki’, the modern drama in Japan, tends to eliminate the narrative element from drama, KARA Juro, one of the earliest counter-shingeki playwrights in the 1960s, uses in his plays unique techniques of narrative, which can be traced in the traditional Japanese theatre as well. KARA's narrative has three aspects: (1) narration in the third person, (2) narration in the first person, that is, the ‘monological’ narration, and (3) narration by plural persons, that is, the ‘dialogical’ narration. The present paper examines these narrative techniques in KARA's plays.

“Katari”, which is one of the most important elements in noh drama, stands in the relationship between the stage-player and the audience. The present paper examines the theatrical aspects or effects of “katari” of the main-character in 24 noh plays and of the side-character in 6 plays.

Noh plays, even popular ones, are rarely read as drama and given correct interpretations. The present writer tries to read a noh play, Kakitsubata, as a drama and determine to whom the “I” actually refers means, when the spirit of kakitsubata (iris), that is, the spirit of Lady Nijo, utters “I as the savor of all the human beings” in the story of Ariwara no Narihira. The writer concludes, examining some secret Medieval literatures on “waka”, a traditional form of Japanese poetry, that the “I” is not the spirit of the story-teller kakitsubata, Lady Nijo, but Narihira himself.

Generally speaking, the essence of ‘katari’ (story-telling) lies in ‘kotoba’ (dialogue). However, by examining the accent of each word, one realizes that the ‘ji’ (description part) is as important as ‘kotoba’ in “katari”.

The accent tends to be changed when the ‘tayu’ (narrator) tries to make the meaning of the story or the characters clear, according to his own understanding of them. It is true that the accent of “kotoba” has been much changed as time passes. But the accent of “ji” has also changed, even if slightly in comparison to “kotoba”. We find that each “tayu” makes his own alteration of not only “kotoba” but “ji” also. Thus “ji”, too, plays an important part in “katari”.

Gidayu-kyogen in kabuki is a form of drama which is adapted from joruri, originally written for puppet theatre. However, the characters in the gidayu-kyogen are played by human actors, who speak the dialogue part, and the description part is spoken by a narrator, who sits to the stage right in the sight of the audience. Therefore, the dramatic and the narrative aspects are intermingled in the gidayu-kyogen. The present article examines the nature of this unique style of representation of gidayu-kyogen.

The “katari” in kabuki acting holds an important role, especially when it is presented as one of these three kinds: “monogatari”, or the story-telling, in gidayu-kabuki, “tsurane”, or the rhetorical narration, in aragoto-kabuki and “hitori-gatari”, or one-man's narration, in wagoto-kabuki.

“Monogatari” requires the actor to be skillful enough to make the audience imagine that he is re-experiencing what he is narrating, or that it is happening here and now.

“Tsurane” was originally regarded as having the power to soothe an evil spirit. This narration in kabuki is a rhetorical description of the landscape or environment, not the expression of personal feelings or thoughts as in Shakespearean soliloquies.

“Hitori-gatari”, on the other hand, started in wagoto-kabuki, which had been originated in the Osaka-Kyoto area at the end of the 17th century. This is a type of narration which tells the past love story in a gentle and delicate tone.

In the present paper the writer explains various phases of “katari” in kabuki.

“Katari” in Joruri controls the whole drama-the narrator, “tayu”, speaks for all the characters in the play and describes the scenery and the psychology of the characters, as if he were God (who knows all).

Kabuki has different methods and constructions. Actors, playing their roles, speak their own lines. However, kabuki demonstrates various kinds of narration, such as “tsurane” or “yakuharai” (a long narrative speech in decorative diction), “monogatari” (a speech to narrate a long episode).

The present paper reports, by examining the MORI Osamu Archive, what kind of vow one had to make in order to be an initiated player under a master narrator of joruri or a master shamisen player in Edo era. The MORI Archive, which belongs to Kobe Women's University, contains old materials about joruri.

In Hamlet, Gertrude says of her son, Hamlet, “He's fat.” According to a modern interpretation, she does not mean that Hamlet is literally fat, but that he is only “sweaty”, for this was the meaning of the word “fat” at the time. This interpretation apparently presupposes an idealized image of Hamlet, which the reader deduces from the play. Even if a fat actor is playing Hamlet on the stage, the audience should perceive him as a non-fat Hamlet.

How should we describe the relationship between these two figures of Hamlet: the idealized one as an image and the actual one on the stage?

In his influential book, The Literary Work of Art, Roman Ingarden applies his ontological theory of schema and concretisation in the reader's perception of the literary work of art to the case of theatre art as well. But he does not seem to be concerned with the above-mentioned question. The present paper tries to make clear the theatrical structure hidden behind the two figures of Hamlet, following Ingarden's theory of schema and concretisation.

Goethe and Schiller did not succeed in making a clear distinction between epic and drama as literary genres in their joint essay ‘On Epic and Dramatic Poetry’ (1797). Schiller did not think, however, that the indistinct aspect of drama should be considered as negative, for he expected the epic element in modern tragedy to ensure “freedom of mind” from passion.

Half a century later Wagner presented in his main theoretical work ‘Opera and Drama’ (1851) a new theory that the orchestra could play a chorus-like role in his musical drama in order to make the audience take an active part in the dramatic performance. In spite of all the differences between the musical drama of Wagner and the modern tragedy of Schiller, a certain parallel aspect should be observed in the dramatic roles of orchestral music in the former and the epic element in the latter.

Robert Lepage's theatre works are complex, being multilingual, multicultural, multidisciplinary, works-in-progress. They take the form of multiple body, which looks different according to the standpoint of our view. How can we get to the essence of his theatre, without falling into a partial and biased interpretation? One key concept is the mirror, not only as a physical object (almost always present on stage in his productions) but also as a structural principle. The present paper argues that the mirror, its image being splitting and doubling, provides Lepage with the starting point from which to construct his performance. It represents an essential part of the structure of his theatre, self/other oppositions, and even helps his theatre go further beyond the limit of such dichotomies.