Paper short abstract:

An examination of the shift in kabuki playwriting from Edo into Meiji and the effects on the delivery and reception of sensitive subjects, with consideration of changing participants, processes, and social/cultural/political spheres.

Paper long abstract:

In the middle of the Edo Period, a systematized process of kabuki play preparation was carried out by a group of kyōgen sakusha, or playmakers. The group was organized into a hierarchy that consisted of top-level men, who in collaboration with top actors worked out the theme and organization of plays and then wrote highlight scenes, as well as less prominent contributors who did anything from writing sections of the plays to preparing publicity billboards. While the top man of the group read through the separately-written play sections for consistency, this system meant that a variety of voices and contributions combined in the preparation of play material.

One of those "contributions" came from government regulations on allowable material and the possibility of play suspension if contravened. Knowing the limitations on addressing social and political themes, methods of bringing sensitive subject matter to the stage were put into practice and group self-censorship also shaped plays and the incorporation of social and political commentary.

When the Meiji period began, there was a lift on old regulations, and at the same time new kinds of men began to write plays. No longer trained and mentored through the in-house, life-long, behind-the-scenes apprenticeship system, these were often prominent men in the cultural (and often social and political) sphere, who were educated in a new world and who were being taught and allowed to express ideas as individuals.

In this paper, I examine the shift from the cooperative playwriting system of Edo-period kabuki to new circumstances in the kabuki playwriting of the Meiji and Taishō periods. I question the effects this shift had on the delivery and reception of sensitive material. In Edo-period plays, responses and views on the social and political environment emerge in suggestive and coded ways, in contrast to a more direct approach at the start of the modern period. This shift is based in changing participants, processes, and social/cultural/political spheres, and as a result, an evolving contract between those on or behind stage and their audiences.