The Impact of External Tensions on Kabuki: the Art Form and the City

This Neatline will look at five theatres across Japanese history, starting at the early Edo period with Okuni and continuing through the Meiji period, post-World War II, and to the Kabuki theatres of today. The theatres presented here embody changes in architecture or location as they compare to each other or versions of reconstructed buildings. As a note, many theatres have undergone several rounds of reconstruction - incorporating new technologies and foreign influences into Kabuki's technical repertoire. More often than not, modern-day Kabuki theatres combine elements of “Western” theatre (referring to the United States or English theatre) with traditional Kabuki elements; some theatrical elements that carried over from Edo period Kabuki include the hanamichi and the revolve stage. The Neatline cross-examines building location in the city and changes in stage design in response to the theme of political censorship in history. Each chronological age of Kabuki is marked by an adjustment in the art form as influenced by the government, further embodied by a change in relationship to the city as both building and entity. External tensions contextualize Kabuki; changes in these external tensions yield response and change in the art form, so do these external contexts impact the location in the city - pointing to the idea of thinking of Kabuki in the inter-related contexts of the city and the art.