Kabuki's Forgotten War: 1931-1945

by James R. Brandon

According to a myth constructed after Japan’s surrender to the Allied Forces in 1945, kabuki was a pure, classical art form with no real place in modern Japanese society. In Kabuki’s Forgotten War, senior theater scholar James R. Brandon calls this view into question and makes a compelling case that, up to the very end of the Pacific War, kabuki was a living theater and, as an institution, an active participant in contemporary events, rising and falling in consonance with Japan’s imperial adventures. Drawing extensively from Japanese sources―books, newspapers, magazines, war reports, speeches, scripts, and diaries―Brandon shows that kabuki played an important role in Japan’s Fifteen-Year Sacred War. He reveals, for example, that kabuki stars raised funds to buy fighter and bomber aircraft for the imperial forces and that pro-ducers arranged large-scale tours for kabuki troupes to entertain soldiers stationed in Manchuria, China, and Korea. Kabuki playwrights contributed no less than 160 new plays that dramatized frontline battles or rewrote history to propagate imperial ideology. Abridged by censors, molded by the Bureau of Information, and partially incorporated into the League of Touring Theaters, kabuki reached new audiences as it expanded along with the new Japanese empire. By the end of the war, however, it had fallen from government favor and in 1944–1946 it nearly expired when Japanese government decrees banished leading kabuki companies to minor urban theaters and the countryside. Kabuki’s Forgotten War includes more than a hundred illustrations, many of which have never been published in an English-language work. It is nothing less than a com-plete revision of kabuki’s recent history and as such goes beyond correcting a significant misconception. This new study remedies a historical absence that has distorted our understanding of Japan’s imperial enterprise and its aftermath.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

480 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2008

About the author

An authority on kabuki theater, James Rodger Brandon received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1955, Brandon joined the Foreign Service for six years, working in Java and Japan. Upon his return to the United States in 1961 Brandon taught Asian theater at the University of Michigan's Department of Speech and Comparative Literature, where he directed his first two Kabuki productions in English. In 1968 Brandon joined the staff at the University of Hawai'i in Manoa, where he taught until his retirement in 2000.

Reviews

[David Reinke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kabuki theatre is often thought of as little more than a museum piece, a window into an age long past, with a repertoire of plays that have not changed since the 19th century. Indeed, first time viewers are often told to ignore the story ("It is meaningless nonsense.") and concentrate instead on the performance. Such a cliché has this advice become that the very name "kabuki" has become a pejorative description of political posturing the world over. To paraphrase the Bard, kabuki is often viewed as "a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing."

Of course, as is often the case, this could not be further from the truth. *

That fact is brought home with refreshing clarity by James R Brandon in his latest book, Kabuki's Forgotten War 1931 - 1945. This book is revelatory in documenting the multitude of new kabuki plays written in the 1930's and 40's in support of Japan's war efforts. It is also a cautionary tale, of what can happen when an art form and its artists tie themselves too tightly to a political cause no matter how noble it may have seemed at the time.

Brandon's research has uncovered an amazing repertoire of war plays, (Overnight Pickle Plays) populist fare that by 1945 had all but consumed the kabuki theatre and become its only stock in trade. As Brandon points out,

In the months before Japan's surrender, kabuki had nearly disappeared.
Many thought it would expire of its own accord. Young actors Onoe
Baiko VII and Nakamura Matagoro II imagined a dark future for themselves
In which kabuki had vanished. "It was beyond imagining," Matagoro
marveled, "that kabuki could quickly revive. I thought that just as Japan had
been utterly destroyed, naturally the traditional arts too were wiped out." p353

This, thankfully, was not to be the case, though it is true that the occupation did forever change kabuki. Contrary to what I, and I suspect many others believed, kabuki did not move from "...being a mixed contemporary-traditional theatre form to a `classic form..." until 1945, much later than many had supposed. That change was as much a result of the Shochiku Theatre Company's anti-occupation policy of "No New plays" as it was the efforts of Colonel Earl Ernst to convince his superiors that kabuki posed no threat to the US occupation. Additionally the kabuki actors themselves believed that "...it wasn't pleasant for audiences to see their ruined, sad lives dramatized on stage."

This is a book that any serious student of Asian Theater or Modern Japanese History should not only have on their bookshelf, but one they should read attentively. Brandon has done a great service to the study of both by illuminating an aspect of 20th century history little know or even suspected outside of Japan.

Brandon writes in a detailed yet easy to follow prose that makes this a fast and entertaining read. He has also uncovered a treasure trove of contemporary photos that are quite simply amazing. They alone are worth the price of admission.

For the sake of full disclosure, Dr. Brandon was one of my professors while I was working on my Master's degree in Asian Theatre at the University of Hawai'i. I also performed in several plays he directed, both classic kabuki plays and contemporary Asian fusion pieces.

*In the mid 1960's the Grand Kabuki toured the US, performing several classic plays one of which was Kumagai Jinya, a play that dramatized events during the Gempei War of 1180-85. One US reviewer at the time saw in the play's tale of duty and sacrifice a very poignant commentary on the then current US war in Vietnam. The stories in kabuki plays, as in all theatre, be it Shakespeare or Pinter or Mamet, do matter. Yes, kabuki is a performance art and is best appreciated when seen rather than only read, but make no mistake about it, the stories do matter.