According to Omote Akira, Iwanami Noh Kyogen Koza, Zeami used (Ongyoku, Hataraki, Mai) as the term which means sing and dance in Kaden and ‘KABU’ for the first time in Kashuuchinukigaki (written at 1418). He changed the term from ‘KABU’ to ‘BUGA’ in Kakyo and used ‘BUGA’ since then as the term which means dance and sing. Zeami and his reratives reused on their Noh plays the terms used in Zeami's Noh theories. It may, therefore, well be that they reused properly ‘KABU’ and ‘BUGA’ on their Noh plays as they did on Zeami's Noh theories.

The paper examines how ‘KABU’ and ‘BUGA’ are used in Noh plays written by Zeami and his reratives. The paper suggests the possibility that ‘BUGA’ were used in Zeami's Noh plays from the latter half of 1419 on for the reason that we can see ‘KABU’ on «Hakurakuten» which was considered to be made in the latter half of 1419 by Amano Fumio. ‘KABU’ is, therefore, considered to be the term which was used on the Noh plays made prir to this. Such Noh plays are «Ousaka» «Hotokegahara».

ENOMOTO Torahiko (1866-1916) held the highest position as a playwright of the Kabuki-za in between the late Meiji period and the early Taisho period. This paper examines the dramaturgy of Torahiko's Kyogashima Musume no Ikenie (The sacrifice of a daughter of Taira no Kiyomori), especially investigates its style and its idea. It is worth noting that the play was adapted from Jean Racine's Iphigénie.

On the basis of Iphigénie's plot. Torahiko invent a new character of Taira no Kiyomori in his play. Kiyomori was represented as a cruel man in Kabuki plays; in contrast, Torahiko characterized him as a father who grieved over his daughter's death. The part of Kiyomori deviated from the “type”, therefore, had little appeal for the audience. They regarded him as a westernized person. Consequently, the audience did not receive the adaptations easily, what was need for writing Kabuki plays was not a unique character but a conventional dramaturgy. However, Torahiko was discontented with this matter because he sought fresh ideas for his original Kabuki plays. In conclusion, the adaptation was an effective means for gaining his ends.

Madame de Sade, as a perfect dialogic play, looks like the drama which accorded with Western legitimate dramaturgy. However, its essence is close to a Japanese traditional play, Noh, because an opposition of logos does not happen between the characters, who are all women. Five women ask the heroine, Rene, in sequence. “What is Sade for you?” She answers passionately, making full use of splendid rhetoric, which constitutes the structure of this drama. Her wish is so extraordinary that nobody can understand it, and it is impossible to realize it in this world. Finally, it turns out that even the very man whom she has been waiting for does not match her. Her image is based on those of heroines in Zeami's works such as ‘Hanjyo’ or ‘Kinuta,’ which show the great enthusiasm of a woman waiting for her man. In modern Japanese theater, before Misima Yukio, Kisida Kunio wrote this type of drama, ‘Saigetsu (Space of Time).’

A play Red Demon written by Hideki Noda has been produced in four versions since its first performance in June, 1996.; in Japanese, Thai, English, and Korean. It seems this play has been effective for more than ten years. This paper examines the reason. This play keeps an exquisite “sense of distance with reality” to politics after 9.11. And the play expressed a kind of “de-borderline-ness”, showing us memory and history.

George Tabori (1914-2007), a Jewish-Hungarian dramatist who produced his works mainly in German speaking countries (via translations) since his re-immigration into Europe in 1971, is now known as a most unique figure in the context of “theatre of the holocaust”, the idea that Robert Skloot introduced in 1982.

Jubilee (1983) is a dense amalgamation of three major components, that are, Jewish identity as something constructed through theatrical self-revelation, elements of black humor and then the Freudian model of dream interpretation. To conclude this, I examined precisely the relevant materials in the George Tabori Archive in Berlin as well as Gundula Ohngemach's unpublished pioneer report on the rehearsal of Jubilee.

In doing this, I discovered two things: (1) Tabori used both English and German in creating his play although he once said he wrote only in English. (2) It was on the very day of the premier (!) that the crucial last scene was decided almost as in the form of the current version. This indicates how Tabori strived for a convincing final effect, although the play as a whole is a plotless collage of episodic, dream-like fragments.

The rise of modernity in the Meiji Period led to a new form of theater, which reflected the time. KAWAKAMI Otojirô was a pioneer of this form. He saw the possibilities entailed in literary works serialized in newspapers. Productions based on literary works are quite frequent even now, but they originated in the Kawakami troupe's first production of Kôyô/Kyôka's Taki no shiraito [White Thread Waterfalls] at Asakusa-za, Komagata (December 4, 1895). It was followed by productions of Konjiki yasha, Ono ga tsumi [My Crime], Ichijiku [Fig], Hototogisu [Cuckoo], and Onna keizu [Women's Genealogy], and they became important repertories of a new form of theater. It can safely be said that it established its solid position by the productions of adaptation of family novels serialized in newspapers in Meiji.

The first production of Konjiki yasha, one of the best sellers in Meiji, was by the Kawakami troupe from the end of March till (probably the mid) April in 1898. However, strangely enough, it is recorded in theater history in a vague manner. Based on new materials that I have obtained recently, this paper discusses the first production of Konjiki yasha and the ones that followed it, and further investigates the Kawakami troupe's tour to the United States and Europe right after the first production. aiming at elucidating the importance of KAWAKAMI Otojirô and his troupe, which pioneered a new form of theater, leading to the contemporary theater.