UH Press Journals Log

Color inserts

Editor’s Note, iii

ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL 2007 LECTURE

Tradition, Change, and Continuity in Chinese Theatre in the Last Hundred Years: In Commemoration of the Spoken Drama Centenary
Colin Mackerras, 1

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Editor’s Note, iii

An Addendum to “Myth and Reality: A Story of Kabuki under American Censorship, 1945–1949”
James R. Brandon, v

ARTICLES

Holy Week in the “Heart of the Philippines”: Spirituality, Theatre, and Community in Marinduque’s Moriones Festival
William Peterson, 309

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Editor’s Note, v

PLAYS

Suehirogari (The Fan of Felicity)
Translated and introduced by Andrew T. Tsubaki, 1

Suehirogari (The Fan of Felicity) is one of twenty-three Auspicious Plays (waki kyōgen) in the current kyōgen repertory. This play uses the relationship of a servant to his master, contrast of country simplicity and city trickery, misunderstandings of language, and dance for humor.

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Editor’s Note, iii

PLAY

Primary Colors: A Play by Mishima Yukio
Introduction and translation by Christopher L. Pearce, 223

Primary Colors (Sangenshoku) is a 1955 play by Mishima Yukio that brings up issues of homosexuality and bisexuality. Its positive treatment of homosexual themes contrasts with the darkness of Forbidden Colors, the author’s novel of the same period. While the play has received only a few professional productions, its poetry and theme help us understand Mishima’s developing aesthetic.

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Editor’s Note
Kathy Foley, iii

ARTICLES

Myth and Reality: A Story of Kabuki during American Censorship, 1945–1949
James R. Brandon, 1

American censors during the occupation of Japan after World War II unsuccessfully attempted to eliminate feudal themes and foster new democratic plays in kabuki. Contrary to popular myths, kabuki flourished under the Occupation, “banned” plays were rapidly released, the infamous “list of banned plays” was not significant, most American censors were captivated by kabuki, and credit for Occupation assistance to kabuki should not limited to one man, Faubion Bowers. Using archival records, I show that the Shōchiku Company, the major kabuki producer, successfully resisted the democratic aims of the Occupation. Shōchiku’s “classics-only” policy protected Japanese culture from American contamination and inadvertently fashioned the fossilized kabuki we know today.

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Editor’s Note
Kathy Foley, iii

PLAY

Topeng Sidha Karya: A Balinese Mask Dance
Performed by I Ketut Kodi with I Gusti Putu Sudarta, I Nyoman Sedana, and I Made Sidia in Sidha Karya, Badung, Bali, 16 October 2002
Transcribed by I Ketut Kodi; translated by I Nyoman Sedana and Kathy Foley; and introduced by Kathy Foley, 171

After a terrorist bomb exploded in the Sari Club at Kuta Beach, Bali, in October 2002, a topeng performance of Sidha Karya (literally “completing the ritual work”) was presented by I Ketut Kodi and other faculty members from STSI-Denpasar, the Indonesian University of the Arts. The mask dance performance, held at the village of Sidha Kaya in Badung, Bali, was an exorcistic response to the terrorist attack and probed Balinese responses to the event. The introduction gives background on the story and analyzes the way the narrative reflected both current social issues and traditional Balinese philosophy.

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Editor’s Note
Kathy Foley, iii

PLAY

Shūshin Kani’iri (Possessed by Love, Thwarted by the Bell): A Kumi Odori by Tamagusuku Chōkun
as staged by Kin Ryōshō translated and annotated by Nobuko Miyama Ochner
Introduction and stage directions by Kathy Foley, 1

Kumi odori is an aristocratic dance-drama developed in 1719 by Tamagusuku Chōkun as part of Okinawan court performance for the ritual investiture of the monarch. Shūshin Kani’iri (Possessed by Love, Thwarted by the Bell) was written for this court presentation and has remained one of the most frequently performed works. The all-male form, which combines music, dance, and narrative, has Okinawan, Chinese, and Japanese roots. Kumi odori’s most important performances for 250 years were in the context of ukwanshin entertainments for the official envoys sent by the Chinese emperor. With the demise of court in 1879, the genre languished until it was designated as an important cultural asset by the Japanese government in 1972. This article gives an introduction to kumi odori based on the practice of Kin Ryōshō, an important twentieth-century practitioner of the form. A translation of the 1719 classic Shūshin Kani’iri (Possessed by Love, Thwarted by the Bell) with stage directions reflecting Kin Sensei’s choreography gives an example of this important art. Shūshin Kani’iri has been a consistent part of the repertoire and was recently presented at the opening of the new National Kumi Odori Theatre (Kokuritsu Kumi Odori Gekijō) in Urasoe-shi near Naha in 2004.

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Editor’s Note
Samuel L. Leiter, iii

PLAY

MORAL: A Play by Kisaragi Koharu
Introduction by Colleen Lanki; script translated by Tsuneda Keiko and Colleen Lanki; original director’s notes translated by Colleen Lanki and Lei Sadakari, 119

Tokyo playwright Kisaragi Koharu (1956-2000) wrote fast-paced, imagistic plays about consumerist society and the challenges of urban life. She and her theatre group NOISE created performances that used words as rhythms and sounds, and the actors’ bodies as parts of some systematic machine. This translation of MORAL, her most expressionistic and perhaps most well-known play, is the first English language publication of her work.

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Editor’s Note
Samuel L. Leiter, p. iii

PLAY

The Three Hagi Sisters: A Modern Japanese Play by Nagai Ai
Translated and introduced by Loren Edelson, 1

Over the past decade, Nagai Ai has become one of Japan’s most beloved and respected playwrights. Her award-winning play The Three Hagi Sisters, first produced in November 2000, won critical and popular acclaim for its humorous depiction of relations between the sexes and its playful satire of academics using their bedroom frustrations as material for gender research. Nagai’s theatrical portrayal of three Japanese sisters living in a small town will remind readers of Chekhov’s Three Sisters while departing in an entirely new direction.

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Editor’s Note
Samuel L. Leiter, iii

PLAY

Umbuik Mudo and the Magic Flute: A Randai Dance-Drama
Introduction by Kirstin Pauka; translated by Ivana Askovic, Barbara Polk, Kirstin Pauka, et al., 113

This first English-language publication of a randai play from West Sumatra is based on the script prepared for a student production staged in 2001 at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa, by one of the translators, Kirstin Pauka, who also introduces the play and its staging.

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