| NOTA |
(★)(Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) wrote about 130 plays, chiefly for the puppet theater. Extremely popular with the audiences of his own day, his history plays and domestic tragedies are still performed in present-day Japan by puppet operators and Kabuki actors. Eleven of these plays --ten domestic tragedies and one history play-- have been translated by Donald Keene, providing a representative selection of Chikamatsu´s work for Western readers. Some of the most popular domestic tragedies have been included in this translation, such as ´The Love Suicides of Amijima´,´The Girl from Hakata´, and ´The Woman-Killer and the Hell of Oil´. The history play,´The Battles of Coxinga´, is a typical drama of its genre : its action unfolds in nineteen different places, extends over a period of six or more years, and is provided with exotic Chinese settings, a swift succession of events, and spectacular stage effects. Dr. Keene provides the reader with an exceptional understanding of Chikamatsu´s work and its background in his introduction to the translations. He discusses customs and beliefs in Chikamatsu´s time, their reflection in the behavior of his characters, and the essential features of drama developed entirely independently of foreign influence. Dr. Keene also provides an appendix on puppet performances of the plays and another on the system of prostitution prevailing in Chikamatsu´s time. In his domestic tragedies, Chikamatsu wrote about the daily life of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Japan long before European dramatists turned to the common man for subject material. His plays are accurate reflections of the society and its life : his characters are samurai, farmers, merchants, and prostitutes ; they speak colloquially and are placed in the shops, streets, teahouses, and brothels that constituted their daily environment. Snatches of contemporary songs evocative of the atmosphere of popular festivals and religious pilgrimages, and vivid descriptions of the world of entertainment supply the background to the actions of the characters. The heroes and heroines of these plays gain significance in terms of the pressures placed upon them by their society. Conflicts between obligations and feelings place these characters in situations so complex that often only death can extricate them. The heroes are weaklings, the heroines may be prostitutes of the lowest class, yet their sufferings bring them a kind of grandeur. The closest counterpart in the Western theater to Chikamatsu´s heroes and heroines is probably to be found in the twentieth-century drama of the little man whose dreams and aspirations are doomed to frustration. In these translations, Donald Keene demonstrates to Western readers Chikamatsu´s skill as a dramatic craftsman and as an artist of subtlety and imagination, providing an appreciation of the playwright within the context of his own development and in relation to the familiar conventions of Western theater.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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