THEATRE STUDIES Journal of Japanese society for Theatre Research
Online ISSN : 2189-7816
Print ISSN : 1348-2815
ISSN-L : 1348-2815
Volume 58
Displaying 1-7 of 7 articles from this issue
Research Article
  • Kimi AKAI
    2014 Volume 58 Pages 1-20
    Published: 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: January 06, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    KAWAGUCHI Matsutarô's novel Tsuruhachi and Tsurujirô (1934) gained popularity after it was adapted into a play and then into a film. This paper examined how the novel was received. In addition, it also clarified the fluid nature of Matsutarô's text by examining the problems of its adaptation and relationship to the Japanese performance art genre “geidômono.”

    The main characters of Tsuruhachi and Tsurujirô are the performers of the Shinnai musical performance art. Together with The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums that follows Kabuki actors, Tsuruhachi and Tsurujirô has generally been considered the performance art genre's representative work. The performance art genre “geidômono” refers to the group of works that depict a world where performance holds a supreme value beyond any particular person. Undeniably, this work and the theatrical production of its predecessor The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums functioned as the impetus creating this genre. Nevertheless, this investigation has shown that while both of these works were treated as similar stories in their historical contexts, their structures greatly differ. Furthermore, Tsuruhachi and Tsurujirô has been considered an adaptation of the long-time Hollywood film Bolero. Clearly, portions have commonalities with Bolero, for instance, the setting, but Tsuruhachi and Tsurujirô's structure and character models differ distinctly from Bolero.

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  • Ryûki GOTÔ
    2014 Volume 58 Pages 21-37
    Published: 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: January 06, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    TAKAYASU Gekkô (1869-1944) is known as a writer of ‘shin kabuki (new kabuki)’ and also as a pioneer, who translated and introduced Henrik Ibsen in Japan. In addition to this, he had an interest in musical drama and has published several musical works from the 1990s onwards.

    In late Meiji 35 (1902), Gekkô's drama Nochi no Hagoromo (After the Featherrobe) was published. Gekkô specifically defined the play as ‘gakugeki (musical drama)’, and the commentary to the play, published two months later, was titled Shin Gakugeki (New Musical Drama). Nochi no Hagoromo was not staged, but from this point onwards Gekkô continues taking an interest in musical drama and its creation. From the late Meiji to the beginning of Taishô era, collaborations with various musicians were planned and in Taishô 9 (1920), Gekkô's musical drama Yogo no Ten-nin (The Angel from Lake Yogo) was first performed by the Takarazuka Shôjo Kageki Dan (Takarazuka Girls Revue Company).

    Gekkô aimed at the fusion of poetry, music and drama on the basis of songs and he continued pursuing new style possibilities through collaboration with people from many various fields throughout his carrier. Gekkô's carrier also included leading positions in avant-garde movements such as the Kyôto Engeki Kairyô Kai (The Theatre Improvement Organization in Kyôto), and he aimed at the realization of the musical drama as contemporary theatre, as something different than modernized kabuki and shinpa (new school) theatre.

    In this paper I argue that his achievements in the field of musical drama needs to re-evaluated in order to establish their importance for the development of modern Japanese musical drama as such.

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  • Rie SAKURAUCHI
    2014 Volume 58 Pages 39-55
    Published: 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: January 06, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    The chorus in Agamemnon by Aeschylus takes up over half of the tragedy. The scholars have studied the chorus's responses and opinions, but they have not recognized the keyword in this play.

    In this paper, I study the chorus of Agamemnon with reference to the keyword, “ϕθóvos” that the chorus employs from their entrance song to the climax of this play. Φθóvos means envy or grudge which was used by a contemporary of Aeschylus first and also Aeschylus used this word as “ϕθóvos of gods” and “ϕθóvos of people”. In their entrance song, the chorus sings about ϕθóvos of the goddess Artemis which is the reason for the victim Ipigeneia's fare. She is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemestra, and therefor Clytemestra kills him. In the next choral scene, the chorus sings about Agamemnon getting ϕθóvos from families who lost their family members in the war of Troy. although he is a supreme commander of this war, he survives and returns to his home.

    Φθóvos appears in the dialogue of Agamemnon and Clytemestra in the climax in this play. Because of Clytemestra's recommendation, Agamemnon ended up getting ϕθóvos of the gods by walking on the purple vestments that belong to the gods. He couldn't avoid ϕθóvos and was killed by his wife.

    The chorus always employs ϕθóvos as being the keyword in the evolution of this play.

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  • Ekiko KOBAYASHI
    2014 Volume 58 Pages 57-72
    Published: 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: January 06, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Friederike Caroline NEUBER (1697-1760) was a privileged German comédienne who cooperated with Professor GOTTSCHED in the theatre reform in Leipzig. However, compared to her pioneering activities, her original dramas and rules are not so much known. In this paper Ein deutsches Vorspiel (1734) and Die von der Weissheit wider die Unwissenheit beschützte Schauspielkunst (1736) are focused on and her innovation at the dawn of the German Enlightenment is considered.

    GOTTSCHED asked NEUBER to abolish Harlequin though the troupe was actually strong in comedies. In Ein deutsches Vorspiel her dramatic rules are declared: actors impersonating gods on Mount Parnassus discuss comedies and tragedies. Talia, the god of comedy, echos GOTTSCHED's words. This play followed Impromptu de Versailles by MOLIÈRE, whose theater, the Comédie-Français, she longed for. This comédien aimed to show human faults and then to please the spectators. On the other hand, Caroline NEUBER had the ideals of improving the behaviour of people and purifying them with comedies. Despite her confidence in Schauspielkunst the troupe lost the audience.

    After bankruptcy she revived the harlequin, which LESSING defended in the Hamburg Dramaturg. The pastoral Die Schäferfeste oder die Herbstfreude (1753) had been a success when performed in Wien in the presence of the empress Maria Teresia. This play has a naïve story of a simple love triangle among the shepherds, yet it creates active comic scenes with four funny servants and without harlequins, and among the characters, Mops acts as a ‘Lustigmacher’ who has potentially the elements of a fool. In this attempt her practice and originality would go beyond GOTTSCHED.

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  • Keiko TAKEDA
    2014 Volume 58 Pages 73-89
    Published: 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: January 06, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This paper about performance piece S/N (1994) created by artist group Dumb Type investigates the citations of previous works by Dumb Type members or other artists. Then, it illustrates the structure of the performance piece by using interviews about the creation process and the recorded performance analysis of S/N.

    In previous reviews, Dumb Type was reported to value the equality among the members in terms of participation in the creative process. In addition, Dumb Type was said to prevent the control by a single author/director on the performance piece. At first sight, hybridity, or decentralization, is the initial characteristic of S/N. The performance's elements are juxtaposed on the stage, including texts, moving bodies, synthesized music, lighting, performers' dialogue, and the projection of moving images.

    In consequence, however, citations and the original creation portion on S/N are aligned along two main themes consistently. S/N has a structure in which similar parts repeat and develop.

    The relationship between the creation of S/N and FURUHASHI Teiji, who informed his close friends about his HIV-positive status just before the creation, will need to be investigated further.

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