CHANG Weixian (1905-1978) has played a key role in the development of Shingeki (new plays, counter to the traditional ones) in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period. One of his achievements was going to the Tsukiji Theatre in Tokyo to study the modern theater after the declination of the 1920s theatrical movement. His approach to the theater in Tokyo, however, has been pointed out to be technique and effect focused, which greatly differed from his contemporaries in mainland China.

This technique and effect centered approach in fact symbolizes a divergence between China and Taiwan. Furthermore, we even can perceive an inevitable turning progress from China to Japan on the theatrical influence via CHANG. In this article, I will clarify the reasons why CHANG had such an inclination in his theatrical approach and inspect the relations between this kind of approach and the colonial society as well. By comparing Taiwan with contemporary China and Korea, we will clearly know how the theatrical development was directed and influenced by its social/political environment; and in CHANG's ideas and career, we can find out the characteristics and problems of the Shingeki development in Taiwan during the colonial period.

The fact that in the history of Japanese literature the turn of the 19th century represented the age of naturalism is rarely remembered especially by scholars of modern theare. The purpose of this paper is to reveal new characteristics of naturalism in theatre which have not so far been realized, through the examination of “Edo” aspects in Shimamura Hogetsu, Hanabusa Ryugai and some important figures in Shinpa (New School) Theatre.

We will come to recognize the significance of the formation of the concept of theatre in modern Japan, and see another possible line of the development of the modern theatre in Japan rather than the line from Jiyu gekijo (Free Theatre) by Osanai Kaoru to Tsukiji Little Theatre, the legitimate Shingeki (New Drama).