Myth-Making

in

Postwar Kabuki

Yukihide Endo

Abstract

According to one false dichotomy, it is commonly accepted that myth and reality contradict each other. Such a misleading dichotomy alleges that myths are constructed, contrived realities. This conventional notion of myth, however, should be called into question because the myth, or rather myth-making, is an essential component of human social activity in which humans situate themselves not only in social, but also cosmological, contexts. Now and again, myth-making is purposely appropriated in order to prioritize and heroize. For example, within the setting of American occupation censorship of ostensibly anti-democratic kabuki, one self-proclaimed kabuki connoisseur, the American Faubion Bowers, strove to mythologize himself as the one who saved kabuki from atrocious censorship. Nonetheless, postwar kabuki’s historical background shows that despite cross-cultural communication challenges, the myth-making of kabuki has been slowly but surely developing in a creative, proactive way. Its noteworthy contributors include Japanese kabuki actors, as well as American and British audiences and critics.

Keywords 

Occupation censorship, Myth-making, Grand Kabuki, Tradition, Innovation, Cultural Others

Introduction

There are two kinds of myth: one that is too ossified to appeal to the human soul, and another that is so proactively alive as to vivify the soul and reside in it. Unlike an established, fossilized myth, a proactively living myth adapts over time. Some lose their relevance and become outdated, while others survive, adapt, and evolve. Examples of both outdated and living myths can be found in those about kabuki that underwent cultural censorship during the American Occupation. In subsequent years, these myths experienced ongoing cultural interpretation, and sometimes misinterpretation. This study compares those ossified myths, which are often disguised as reality, with the evolvable ones, and investigates how living, vibrant myths are capable of evolving through interaction with (cultural) Others.  

Among other myth-makers of kabuki, Faubion Bowers is worthy of attention. In the prewar period, he spent a year or so in Tokyo where he experienced live kabuki. Because of this previous exposure to the enemy culture, he was considered a reliable translator and censor. he believed that his peer censors unanimously disapproved of kabuki because kabuki was rife with brutal, feudal beliefs. His self-avowed expertise in kabuki led him to idolize himself as the savior of kabuki. To challenge him, however, James R. Brandon, a kabuki scholar, sought to demythify the image of Bowers as savior. Brandon brought to the fore Bowers’s intentional ignorance of the background of the 1945-1949 censorship, and he rebuked Bowers for his inexcusable distortion of historical facts regarding the censorship. Bowers’s controversial myth-making about himself, kabuki, and censorship was called into question in the US, and his contribution to saving kabuki during the occupation era was challenged in Japan as well. On the one hand, Japanese non-fiction writer Shirô Okamoto published The Man Who Saved Kabuki: Faubion Bowers and Theatre Censorship in Occupied Japan (in Japanese 1998) to praise Bowers as the savior of kabuki. Its English translation, by Samuel Leiter, was published in 2001. On the other hand, this savior myth was challenged by media studies scholar Yasuki Hamano’s False Democracy: The Secret Postwar History of the GHQ, Film, and Kabuki (in Japanese 2008). Arguments both for and against Bowers as savior still coexist in Japan and the U.S. today.

From a historical perspective, Brandon’s critique of Bowers’s impudent falsification and fabrication of historical realities most certainly deserves critical acclaim. Nonetheless, his investigation exclusively contextualizes American occupation censorship into myth-reality polarity. When considering myth-making outside historical discussion, this black-and-white thinking turns out to be not only unhelpful, but harmful as well, because myth-making as a creative means must be capable of being adapted to changing contingencies. Myth-making in this sense not only responds to immediate needs, but also prepares for changing circumstances regarding cross-cultural communication and interaction. Myth and reality are not competitive, but rather complimentary.

Methodology

Brandon’s detailed research on American censorship of kabuki in occupied Japan provides a springboard for comparing myths and realities surrounding this theater censorship, and for further exploring the importance of myth-making in both the development of kabuki and the proactive cross-cultural communication for mutual understanding. More often than not, myth and reality fuse.

Censored Kabuki Plays

It was—and still is—widely believed that the Allied (first and foremost, American) censors intended to destroy kabuki because they considered its guiding tenets to be extremely feudalistic, and thus contradictory to the humanism and democracy that Western society embraced. Among other commonly presented kabuki plays, three pieces —Banchô Sarayashiki [TheBroken Dish], Sugawara-Denju Tenarai-kagami [Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy](especially one of its scenes called the “Terakoya [Village School]”), and Treasury of Loyal Retainers (aka Chushingura Vendetta) — served as a warning to a team of cultural censors who sought to remove chauvanistic, anti-humanist, and anti-democratic elements from postwar Japan’s arts and culture. These three plays, they argued, thematically involved humiliation and dehumanization. Because they were characterized by extreme cruelty and viciousness, the argument continued, they had a strong propensity for disrupting peace and order in human society. The most popular American perception of the feudalistic culture as depicted in kabuki is illustrated by Harold Keith, one of the leading censors in occupied Japan. In a 1946 theater journal, Keith wrote, “Samurai tradition of the popular Kabuki drama, with its attendant themes of revenge, sex-inequality, warrior worship, blind loyalty to one’s lord and the absence of individual conscience, had to be discouraged” (Keith 1946, 240-241, quoted by Brandon 2006, 17). As such, kabuki plays that were traditionally well loved by Japanese people conflicted with Western democracy.

The three plays noted above were ultimately forbidden. First, the censors recognized the provocative sexism of The Broken Dish, in which an innocent servant girl is fatally punished by her master for the minor mistake of breaking a plate. Second, the Village School scene of a political rivalry saga focuses on retainers’ feudalistic loyalty to a lord. This lord is an idealized version of the 10^th-century celebrated scholar, poet, and politician Sugawara Michizane, who was believed to have been falsely accused of treason and exiled to the then southernmost area of ancient Japan. The play suggests that feudal allegiance deserves higher priority than any other value; so much so that even killing a child for a political purpose can be justified. The infanticide here refers to an atrocious political act that enabled the powerful tyrant politician Fujiwara Tokihira to defeat his primary rival, Sugawara Michizane by terminating Sugawara’s blood line. The tyrant deceptively persuades Sugawara Michizane’s chief retainer to accept a vicious solution that demands the murder of Sugawara’s heir—a young boy who studied at a rural school—which allows Sugawara to be free from persecution. Lastly, it was natural that American censors were disgusted by Treasury of Loyal Retainers because it seemed to applaud bloodthirsty retaliation and simply aestheticize disembowelment as a death penalty for carrying out organized vengeance without the Tokugawa military government’s permission. Consequently, the play was banned outright. Traditionally, the loyal retainers’ tragic demises stirred empathy among Japanese audiences, though young audiences today are unlikely to respond as the older generations did. The American censors for their part, however, determined to democratize militant Japan and transform it into a humanitarian society.

In the late 1940s, Japanese culture, tradition, and mindset were unfamiliar to the general American public and thus, Americans almost certainly felt appalled by the cruelty of samurai culture. Wartime Western Orientalism and exoticism had created a mythology around Japan that influenced the censors in one way or another. More importantly, in the early 1940s Japan had been America’s wartime enemy so much so that Japan was considered an uncivilized and barbarian nation — qualities that were thought to be represented by kabuki (Thornbury 2008, 195). To the eyes of American occupiers of defeated postwar Japan, theater censors in particular, kabuki was the epitome of Japan, or rather Japanese culture. Americans almost inevitably perceived that kabuki represented the opposites of humanistic perspectives onindividual dignity and gender equality, in particular. These negative views of kabuki lay at the core of the American mind. In turn, they contributed to constructing the myth of kabuki as being inhumane and sadistic.

Faubion Bowers’s Self-Centered Myth-Making

Unexpectedly, however, from among the American censors there appeared a strong supporter of traditional kabuki. This defender was Faubion Bowers (1917-1999), who was a solitary defender and supposed specialist of kabuki. In 1952 he published the scholarly book Japanese Theatre that describes the comprehensive history of Japanese theater from mythological times through the mid-1940s. His contact with Japan began in 1940, just before the US and Japan entered the Pacific War. Training as a pianist at Julliard, he intended to visit Indonesia for musical research (Guest 2002, 109). En route, he spent a year or so teaching English at a university in Tokyo where he became captivated by kabuki, which was eye-opening and enlightening to him. But in late 1941, the threat of an impending U.S.-Japan war caused him to return to the U.S.

In September 1945, a month subsequent to Japan’s surrender, the young Bowers returned to Japan as one of the Allied Powers’ interpreters. Having been recognized for his expertise in kabuki, he was soon assigned a role in theater censorship (Brandon 2006, 90). Now the myth-making of kabuki began to take a new direction, proactively pursuing creative cross-cultural communication. It was Bowers that advocated kabuki’s artistic timelessness and universality that contributed to the formation of world classics. Obviously, this view conflicted with those of his colleagues, who were generally wary of a kabuki that seemed rife with feudalistic beliefs and in direct contradiction to Western democracy. Feeling uncomfortable with his colleagues’ antipathy towards kabuki, Bowers believed himself to be a lone kabuki enthusiast.

Moreover, Bowers tried to build a new myth depicting himself as “the savior of kabuki” (Thornbury 2008, 203), touting his struggle to save kabuki from destructive censorship (Bowers 1952, xix). To the contrary, his critics contended that what Bowers really wanted was to be celebrated for his heroic rescue efforts on behalf of the jeopardized kabuki. This is an associated (secondary) myth which stems from the myth of traditional kabuki as an essential component of world literature. In the book The Man Who Saved Kabuki (originally in Japanese), Shirô Okamoto, a Japanese journalist and nonfiction writer, appreciated Bowers’s contribution to preserving kabuki tradition and portrayed him as the savior (Okamoto 1998). The myth remained unchecked for half a century both in Japan and the U.S. until the early 2000s when American and Japanese scholars (Brandon 2006; Hamano 2008) called it into question, asserting that Bowers “actively promoted the myth, it seems to increase his own importance” (Brandon 2006, 90). To dignify himself, Bowers allegedly liked to boast that he was a secretary of General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (Brandon 2006, 18; Thornbury 2008, 200). He began — almost compulsively — mythologizing himself. When interviewed by Brandon, American occupation censor Earle Ernst (who later became a renowned theater professor) all but ignored Bowers’s self-glorification, criticizing his distorted facts and history regarding occupation censorship (Brandon 2006, 18).

Bowers’s myth-making about kabuki and “Bowers the savior” lacks a collective cultural background in which values, beliefs, and traditions are shared by public masses. His exposure to live kabuki performance was limited to a mere one-year stay in Tokyo, where he gleaned little real understanding of Japanese culture, let alone kabuki theater. Bowers’s self-portrait of the savior was no more than his own fantasy. More importantly though, this falsified self-image significantly contributed not only to the misinterpretation of kabuki theater, but also to harmful confusion among theatergoers both in Japan and abroad in subsequent years. An individually-driven and selfishly motivated myth-making cannot be equated with cosmological myth-making that is crucially connected to the development of culture, humanity, and history.

Historical Facts about Kabuki Censorship

Although Bowers as a censor allegedly strove to protect the at-risk tradition of kabuki, his colleagues were not necessarily trying to terminate its feudal ideals. Among others engaged in theater censorship, Ernst was the most distinguished for his expertise in theater arts, given his doctorate in theater history from Cornell University (Brandon 2006, 34). Unlike Bowers, who craved acclaim for the great courage he showed in allegedly saving kabuki, one might argue that Ernst was torn between duty (censorship) and sensitivity (artistic appreciation and respect). Ernst feared that banning kabuki plays outright because of their feudalism would prevent kabuki from paving the way for adaptive development in a postwar future. According to a colleague of his, Ernst believed that “censorship should be ended as soon as possible. Censorship was consistent with the American system, it was needed, but it should be done away with quickly” (Brandon 2006, 45).

In the occupation era, there appeared misleading stories about artistic and cultural censorship in which Bowers’s self-idolization was allowed to influence people around him. The Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD), which was part of the General Headquarters (GHQ) governing occupied Japan, included both American and Japanese censors. Until CCD was disbanded in late 1949 the total number of the Japanese censors was as many as 14,000 (Yamamoto 2013, 13). Many of these Japanese staff were engaged in postal censorship so as to secure information about Japanese activities against the U.S. occupying forces. It can be argued that, like some American censors, the Japanese counterparts faced this dilemma: Westernize and civilize cultural feudalism, or destroy artistic tradition. It appears, however, that there is little or no literature on the way in which the censors contributed to reshaping kabuki in order to “promote ‘democratic’ and ‘liberal’ themes appropriate for a new, peaceful, cultural nation” (Brandon 2014, 104). Okamoto provided one account of a Japanese translator-censor (Okamoto 1999, 281-284). This middle-aged former English teacher was employed by the GHQ. He told Okamoto that he had seen firsthand that Bowers had been enormously influential on several occasions. Obviously, the (unproductive, self-centered) myth of the American savior of kabuki continuously built on itself, not only through Bowers’s own self-admiration, but through that of other spellbound staff members as well.

From Adversaries to Allies

In the early 1950s, the myth-making involved in characterizing postwar kabuki entered a new phase.During that time, the three-year Korean War —a clash between capitalism and communism— raged. This geopolitical context significantly changed postwar power relations between the US and Japan. Considering Japan’s geographic proximity to the battlefield and the crucial demand for its economic and industrial rehabilitation, it was inevitable that Japan served as a critical logistic base for the United Nations Forces involved in the 1950-1953 Korean War. In addition, Japan was experiencing the transition from occupation to independence (mid-1952). In other words, the Korean War and Japan’s independence led postwar Japan to act as an ally of the US (Thornbury 2008, 194-195). More importantly, this change in both countries’ interrelationships played anundeniable role in redefining postwar kabuki such that it could adapt to the changing political relationship between the U.S. and Japan in the post-Korean War era.

During the post-Korean War and subsequent Cold War eras (1953-1962) the myth of kabuki once again had to transform itself to comply with a status quo that reflected power relations between the US and the Soviet Union. This optimistic reappraisal of kabuki that typified Japanese tradition was illustrated by kabuki troupes’ American tours in the first few years after the surrender of Japan. The two tours were carried out by the female-led “Azuma Kabuki Dancers and Musicians” in 1954 in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C., and by all-male kabuki professionals under the title of “The Grand Kabuki” in 1960 in New York and Los Angeles (Thornbury 2008, 194). It could be argued that the Azuma Kabuki 1954 tour was intended as a preliminary survey of how Japan’s wartime enemy —the U.S.— would respond to “kabuki”, which had been deemed to be fraught with feudalistic beliefs during the occupation era. Having anticipated an enduring American aversion to mythicized feudal Japan, the Azuma Kabuki troupe chose to avoid scripted plays with remnants of feudal ideology, and instead presented Japanese traditional dance with musical accompaniment. However, the Azuma Kabuki was not recognized as authentic kabuki because it consisted only of dance pieces and excluded traditional scripted stage plays. Despite this defensive preparation, the troupe worried that American audiences “would be bored to death”. However, audiences unexpectedly appreciated its theatrical, aesthetic expertise (Martin 1954) and offered much applause. Did this imply the positive forgetfulness of American audiences, or was it merely lip service that Americans paid to the Japanese enemy-turned-ally?

Postwar Kabuki Involved in Geopolitical Power Relations

In June 1960, the second American tour of kabuki commenced with a full set of stage plays that represented authentic kabuki, which was perceived as “full operas”, or “the real thing” (Thornbury 2008, 216, 214). While the Azuma Kabuki had presented merely Japanese traditional dance pieces, the Grand Kabuki troupe performed kabuki in its authentic form. The American audiences welcomed the visiting kabuki actors with open arms (Calta 1960). Because the (then) forty-year-old acclaimed Japanologist Donald Keene served as the most trustworthy interpreter of Japanese culture and kabuki, his contributions helped significantly in creating a welcoming atmosphere for the audiences. The passage of time from the occupation era as well as the emerging necessity of U.S.-Japanese defense politics served to promote amicable relations between both countries.

Once again, it is noteworthy that kabuki’s 1960 American tour involved myth-making. A welcoming attitude, as described above, was derived from a culturally constructed idea of kabuki as an ageless art. Americans at that time honored kabuki with the prefix “Grand”. It could be argued that “Grand Kabuki” was perhaps an English rendition of the original Japanese designation traditionally referred to as “Ô-Kabuki (great or major kabuki),  which conventionally denoted kabuki performed in premodern (the 18^th -19^th centuries) central cities, i.e., Edo (present-day Tokyo), Osaka, and Kyoto. Bearing in mind, however, that most American audiences, critics, and scholars were not necessarily informed of the term “Ô-Kabuki”, “Grand Kabuki” could also be the result of exotically-inspired admiration or adulation. During the first 15 years postwar —1945 through 1960 — the perception of wartime and occupied Japan as America’s foe was watered down. In terms of politics, economics, and culture, the two countries were allies. This change provided Americans with a new perspective on kabuki whose depiction of characters had been deemed dehumanizing. Thus there emerged a new, or rather re-emerging modern myth about kabuki in the U.S. in such a way as to correspond with “images of Japanese culture marked by tradition and ahistorical continuity” (Thornbury 2008, 194). 

Unlike premodern — 17th-18th century — kabuki that developed in a secluded Japan outside of international political relations, postwar kabuki was necessarily involved in world politics, especially during the period from 1945-1960. Deeper understanding of this requires some knowledge of the sociopolitical background of 1960s Japan. It was in June 1960 that the Grand Kabuki made its first American tour. This tour was of great importance far beyond the conventional cultural encounter and exchange. From the standpoint of both Japan and the U.S., it was expected that this visit would encourage civilian intercultural exchange and help to advance further a political and military partnership within the Cold War framework that began with the Korean War. The 1960 cultural contact between countries had no choice but to be encompassed within this Cold War context. This particular myth-making about kabuki in 1960 was thus influenced by political-military affairs involving both countries.  

Focusing on the timing of Grand Kabuki’s American tour helps to reveal that in June 1960, Japan was about to revise the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, originally signed in September 1951, as part of the San Francisco Peace Treaty which recognized the sovereignty of postwar Japan. The prime minister in office at that time was Nobusuke Kishi, then president of the Liberal Democratic Party. Generally speaking, many Japanese people were not happy about the renewal of the security treaty under the government that was in power in 1960 because they feared that this treaty would lead Japan to be indirectly involved in a U.S.-Soviet military confrontation. Consequently, massive demonstrations erupted nationwide. The protests climaxed in June 1960, overlapping with the Grand Kabuki’s American tour. Reportedly, “an estimated 30 million people—about one-third of Japan’s population at the time—participated in some manner in cities, villages, and towns all across the nation” (Kapur 2020, 2). The extensive media coverage at that time might have helped to subliminally politicize the 1960 kabuki American tour. 

As the political alliance between the U.S. and Japan grew stronger, it began influencing kabuki’s American tours. Although Japanese actors and American audiences were not fully aware of the other country’s bilateral political and military alliances, political nuances must have played a role in creating a mutually comfortable and friendly atmosphere where both sides encountered the Other. Despite 15 years having passed since the surrender of Japan, those engaged in the 1960 Grand Kabuki on both sides were still able to recollect their own wartime memories. Nonetheless, they showed friendliness to each other. By suppressing a lingering unease, each in their own way, both Others (the Japanese players and the American spectators) endeavored to create a festive ambience of exotic spectacle.

This partially explains why American theater critics’ reviews of Grand Kabuki that appeared in the mass media were manifestly favorable, and allegedly appreciated the immortal artistic value of kabuki. On the other hand, the kabuki actors were quite different in appearance. As stated above, they were so humble that they feared their performances would bore American audiences. It should be recognized, however, that far from self-abnegating, this humbleness suggests a Japanese willingness to be sociable and greet guests hospitably. Traditionally, in contrast to Americans, the Japanese accommodate guests in a distinctively reserved manner. Despite this cultural difference, both countries have nurtured long-term affiliations through cultural exchange.

It is no wonder then that seemingly friendly communications do not always guarantee mutual understanding. To use the words of an old Chinese saying, the encounter between kabuki and the American audience reminds one of “sleeping in the same bed and dreaming different dreams”. As Thornbury has suggested, the American-made “Grand Kabuki” can be translated as “America’s kabuki-Japan” (Thornbury 2008, 222) that caters to American audiences. It is nothing but a myth made in America, which could turn out to be productive or not. These two culturally different myths encounter each other and, if they are fortunate, interact through repeated negotiation, but they often fail to deeply understand each other. Attempts to bridge cultural gaps often end up in frustration.

Creative Adaptation for Audiences at Home and Abroad

Nevertheless, the awareness of an unavoidable misunderstanding between different cultures does not at all signify the ultimate impossibility of mutual understanding between cultural Others. Different individuals or peoples are able to create myths about themselves in order to seek the essence of being human, to ponder the essence of the world, and to explore the essence of humanity. Karen Armstrong, a nun-turned-religious thinker writes, “We cannot completely recreate ourselves, cancel out the rational bias of our education and return to a pre-modern sensibility. But we can acquire a more educated attitude to mythology. We are myth-making creatures” (Karen Armstrong 2006, 8). Selfishly motivated self-glorification, as in the case of Bowers, obstructs human efforts to explore the truth of humanity and the world. In contrast, cultural encounter and interaction with an Other encourages one to create myths about different cultures and peoples. Myth-making in this sense involves efforts not only to advance mutual understanding between Others, but also to cultivate one’s self-awareness and deepen one’s self-understanding, both in social life and within the cosmological context. When preparing the 1960 American tour, the kabuki actors were not sure whether tradition-bound kabuki would draw the attention of Occidental Others. While on tour, they could not help reconciling their preserved tradition with an alien environment. Fortunately, this reconciliation was achieved by intuition. They had recourse to “the freedom to creatively adapt and hybridize tradition to keep it responsive to current needs” (Pager 2012, 1838). As a matter of fact, the creative adaptation and hybridization of traditions enables those traditions to stay alive and even to thrive.

Myth-Making about Kabuki and Its Paradox

Myth-making about kabuki has not ceased to change either favorably or unfavorably. To characterize the nature of the myth, Ira Chernus argues, “Myths are constantly being renegotiated” (Chernus n.d.). For all that, there have often arisen paradoxical twists in Western responses to the Grand Kabuki tour in the U.S. and UK. The comparison between reviews — those accessible online — from the 1960s through the 2000s, indicates that while earlier reviews offer comparatively discerning and insightful perspectives, subsequent ones tended to betray somewhat anachronistic or regressive views of Japan. The second trend reminds one of the Western subconscious resentment toward Japan in wartime and in the immediate postwar years.

Among other critics, the prominent Japanologist Keene insightfully describes the successful subconscious communication between kabuki actors and American audiences in the 1960 Grand Kabuki. By virtue of Bowers and Keene, audiences could rent simultaneous translation receivers for one dollar. According to Keene, an audience’s visual perception of the story as it unfolded on the stage played a much greater role in the audience appreciating and enjoying the stage performance than the rented audio equipment. He wrote, “[t]he flowing movements of the dances, the bold gestures, and the sharp notes of the music give pleasure even when not one word is understood” (Keene 1960, 50). This phrasing helps us to visualize how kabuki actors and musicians demonstrated their theatrical expertise. As shown above, Keene was able to sharply perceive certain universal, fundamental aspects of theater that did not necessarily accompany simultaneous translation.

Likewise, when commenting on what he had learned from the Grand Kabuki in 1979, acclaimed American theater director and producer Harold Prince took inspiration from the kabuki tradition that contrasted sharply with the principles of realism in modern Western theater. Pursuing experimental theater and challenging “tradition-bound” Broadway, he believed that he and kabuki shared an understanding of theater in which “anything theatrical is acceptable” because tradition always competes with innovation. This artistic freedom requires the innocent child-like mind of a novice that is readily responsive to fresh stimuli (Oyama 1979, 3). Prince’s interpretation of kabuki differs from the standard definition, but considering that the 400-year-old kabuki tradition is a product of frequent creative innovation, he hit the mark. His definition of kabuki tradition as such is illustrated by his directing style, which often employed kabuki conventions such as female impersonation and black-clad stagehands (“kurogo”). It can be argued that unless tradition is infused with renewed vigor over and over again, it will most likely die out. Like Prince, Lee Strassberg was another legend of American theater who recognized the principles of theater shared by both Western theater and kabuki. Inspired by Stanislavski’s theory of psychological realism, he aimed to vividly reveal a character’s unseeable inner reality through physically observable behavior. Having seen the 1979 Grand Kabuki, he was perceptive enough to realize its dynamic, colorful, and skillful nature. To his surprise, kabuki had, for centuries, developed and kept alive fundamental elements of theater comparable to those of classical Western theater traditions. Both Prince and Strassberg argued that kabuki possessed a dynamism capable of invigorating modern Western theater, which they felt was less spirited and proactive than before. Like Keene, these two American theater artists earnestly strove to understand the kabuki tradition by creating analogies between the apparent opposites, thus narrowing the gap between them.

Emerging Retrogressive Stereotypes of Japan

By contrast, in the 1980s and beyond — more than 40 years postwar, and despite the significant development of the U.S.-Japan alliance— the aforementioned hospitable atmosphere in American theater world began to erode. Theater arts critics’ responses to kabuki and Japanese dance in the U.S. and UK deteriorated. A number of reviews provocatively conjured up collective memories of Japan as a wartime enemy, so vicious and merciless as to behead POWs. In her review of a Japanese dance group at the 1982 American Dance Festival, Anna Kisselgoff, a veteran dance critic for The New York Times, highlighted a Japanese culture, contradictory by nature, that “accepts both flower arranging and hara-kiri [honor suicide by disembowelment] (Kisselgoff 1982). Two decades later, another of her reviews of Japanese dance alleged that a kamikaze attack comfortably coexists with flower arrangement (Kisselgoff 2000, quoted by Thornbury 2009, 268). Just as wars make a lingering impression on politicians, so too do they leave those impressions on common people. This partially explains why such an impact tends to influence people subliminally time and again. Dormant collective memory may, if need be, speak out.

Even in the early 2000s, 60 years after WWII, socially constructed images of the brutal, belligerent Japanese persisted. In a review of the performance of Japanese dancers, John Rockwell, a dance critic, felt “an inherent tension between aesthetics and bellicosity” that characterized the nature of the Japanese (Rockwell 2006, quoted in Thornbury 2009, 268). Even so far removed from the wartime era, the term “bellicosity” intended to characterize Japan remained valid.

Rockwell authorizes his portrayal of Japan by referring lightheartedly to Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and The Sword (Benedict 1946). This long-standing classic was deemed somewhat controversial by Japanese people living in rapidly changing 21^st-century Japan because of its oversimplified characterization of Japanese people and culture. In it, Benedict juxtaposes aesthetics (the metaphor of chrysanthemum) and uncompromising discipline (that of the sword). She analytically reveals the contradictory nature of a Japanese culture and people, which maintains a delicate balance that may occasionally collapse. Her Japan-West binarism is controversial. In this respect, a Korean-American sociologist John Lie criticizes her essentialist perspective on Japanese culture (Lie 2001, 255-257). Unfortunately, Rockwell availed himself of oversimplified essentialist understanding. Perhaps driven by a kind of modern Western pacifist ideology, he misinterpreted the metaphorical polarity of the chrysanthemum and the sword to such an extent that it distorts the nature of the subtle association between simple elegance and severe self-restraint. To him, the sword simply represents violence; that is, the irresponsible suicide of a kamikaze attack.

In contrast to Rockwell, Benedict approached Japan in a more pliable way. She was aware of the delicate connection between two apparent opposites. She wrote that the Japanese are “both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new ways”, and then recapitulated this singular contradiction by figuratively phrasing it as “the chrysanthemum and the sword” (Benedict 1946, 2). In the whole context of her book, the “sword” does not exclusively signify bloodthirsty aggression or militarism (often combined with atrocity). Nonetheless, stereotypical images of the belligerent Japanese have survived even today in the U.S. and UK. Rockwell’s unintentional misinterpretation of Benedict’s inquiry into the coexistence of opposites in Japaneseness might reflect the collective memory of a WWII shared by the former allied nations. Although the sword metaphor tends to be readily connected with Japaneseness, however, the sword tropes are recognizable across cultures and times. As a matter of fact, “sword tropes” about virile prowess abound worldwide, even in recent live action movies and anime that cater to both children and adults. Hopefully, American, or rather Western, contact with Japanese culture will provide valuable opportunities for people from different cultures to communicate for mutual understanding.

In the 21^st century, a request for simultaneous translation re-emerged. Demand for it was brought to the fore in the Grand Kabuki production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at Barbican, London in 2009. This Shakespearean play was adapted by a Japanese kabuki playwright, played by Grand Kabuki actors, and directed by the internationally acclaimed, experimental, non-kabuki director Yukio Ninagawa. This visually elaborate adaptation or recreation rendered in Japanese captivated British audiences and garnered considerable appreciation. Fisher wrote, “English viewers are not helped by very sparse surtitles, which clearly miss around two-thirds of what was said, unless the Japanese use three times as many words as the man from Stratford” (Fisher 2009). One might call into question the assumed significance of simultaneous English translation. When experiencing theater in a foreign language, the audience is not necessarily comparable to the college student reading a world classic, where literal translation in the brain or by means of a dictionary may be a prerequisite. Here it is worth remembering Keene’s emphasis, as quoted earlier, on the importance of “audiences’ visual perception of what unfolded on the stage.

Contrary to this relatively recent and rising claim for parallel translation, however, Jennifer Dunning, a regular dance critic for The New York Times, argues that translation equipment is not always a must for American audiences to enjoy kabuki. Her review of the Grand Kabuki in 1982 observed, “Headsets were available for simultaneous English translation, but they were really necessary only for an occasional bawdy pun” (Dunning 1982).

On the other hand, there are opponents. Although there is no sizable number of reviews that refer to audio or visual translation, demand for simultaneous translation via earphones or subtitles/surtitles most certainly fluctuates. A London-based professional pianist and kabuki enthusiast Ronald Cavaye, who has for decades been engaged in simultaneous translation of kabuki plays in Europe and Japan, advocates for the use of a translation tool. According to him, in the 2006 Grand Kabuki at London, “[m]embers of the audience with the earphone soon entered fully into the spirit of the performances” (Cavaye 2006). These advocates for bilingual translation attract the attention of theatergoers worldwide. Linguistic barriers in cultural exchange and intercultural communication have yet to be faced and tackled not through readily available solutions such as mechanical or digital translation tools, but through the repeated negotiations by those involved and engaged in cultural interaction.

CONCLUSION

Customarily, myth strongly contrasts with reality. Myths are associated with illusion, whereas realities are tied with truth. With respect to historical research, this contrast stands to reason. For instance, as argued above, Brandon’s “Myth and Reality” contrasts myth with reality. This myth refers to Bowers’s constructed and purely subjective narrative about kabuki censorship. The reality, on the other hand, indicates historical facts that Brandon extensively researched about American censorship during the first five years of occupation. Despite Bowers’s direct exposure to live kabuki performance immediately before the Pacific War, he was not free from an Orientalist bias. His oversimplified discourse on kabuki as being jeopardized by American censorship contains classic tropes of Orientalist exoticism that fancifully embellish Japanese traditional culture. Additionally, his self-dramatization as the savior of kabuki at risk is comparable to the Western classic trope, “the prince on a white horse”. Brandon harshly juxtaposed Bowers’s fanciful myth against historical facts that Brandon carefully accumulated.

By contrast, the myth-making surrounding cultural products and concepts, kabuki included, falls outside the scope of harsh juxtaposition between myth and reality. Myth-making in this sense avoids seeking the ultimate definition of each myth, but concentrates on revising, redefining, and reinvigorating the already established myths. Looking back on the history of kabuki, it reached its peak in the mid-18th – early 19th centuries. In those days, the fundamentals of acting and dancing styles and techniques were established. They have been passed down for generations. However, it is important to note that through this preservation of traditional kabuki, actors do not seek precise duplication at all but instead, as Pager argues above, conscientiously strive to adapt tradition in order to bring it up to date and awaken an artistic sensibility within both domestic and international contemporary audiences. Since its inception in the 18th century, full-fledged traditional kabuki has experienced a transformation from time to time. Transformation as such is usually affected by its encounter with an Other. This encounter not only takes place across different cultures, but also within one’s own culture. The audiences at home and abroad represent a wide variety of generations and types of interest in theater. Hopefully, without excluding each other, tradition and innovation can delicately operate in tandem. The apparent incompatibility between tradition (stability) and innovation (change) would seem to be logically irreconcilable. Nevertheless, there is hope for those engaged in myth-making about themselves and cultural Others to reshape and adapt established myths to a new intercultural communication environment. To borrow again from Chernus’s “The Meaning of ‘Myth’ in the American Context”, this creative, proactive myth-making involves constant negotiation and renegotiation between cultural Others. Most importantly, myth and reality complement each other.

At the beginning of the 21^st century, a new traditional kabuki troupe of young actors led by the acclaimed actor Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII (1955-2012) reconceptualized modern kabuki theater in an unprecedented fashion. His troupe, which consisted of kabuki actors and non-kabuki stage directors and actors, built an experimental temporary venue for a series of kabuki plays. In 2004 and 2007 they embarked on a U.S. tour with new acting and directorial ideas, and a reinterpretation of kabuki tradition. This illustrates the concept and practice of tradition in tandem with innovation, but that is the subject of another research paper.

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