Story
In the region of 10,000 plays have been written since the inception of kabuki, and although many have now disappeared, over 200 classics are still performed. With a dialogue full of puns, double meanings, epigrams and allusion, their content can be classified into two main categories: jidaimono and sewamono
Jidaimono
In general, jidaimono deals with matters concerning the pre-Edo aristocracy. The subject matter is that of the conflicts of the Nara and Heian period, and the names of the characters are usually those of their historical counterparts. The tales of the wars between the Heike and Genji clans were extremely popular, consequently, this encouraged playwrights to include the audience's favourite characters on a regular basis. For example the characters of the Lord Yoshitsune and his retainer Benkei make frequent appearances. The jidaimono stories recount heroic deeds, personal sacrifice, loyalty, and death before dishonour. It is fair to say that in many cases the tales are quite bloodthirsty!
During the Edo period, it was forbidden to dramatise events relating to the nobles and samurai class. Therefore it was common for playwrights to set the same events in a historical context with the names of the protagonists disguised, but often recognisable to the audiences. The famous play Chuushingura is of this type.
Chuushingura tells the true story of the vendetta carried out in 1703 by 47 rounin (masterless samurai). Upon finding that their master, in breach of the rule of the shougun, had been condemned to commit seppuku for drawing his sword in anger inside the palace, they exacted their revenge. Subsequently, they too committed seppuku. As there had been peace in Japan for almost a hundred years, this event captured the imagination of the populace to whom the samurai code of loyalty and resolute action seemed almost forgotten. Because of the ban on the dramatisation of current events that involved the nobility, the theatrical version was set in the 14th century with a change of names, and the location moving from Edo to Kamakura.
Sewamono
In contrast to the jidaimono, sewamono deals with the lives of the ordinary citizens of the Edo period such as the merchants and farmers. They capitulate to the relentless ethical code of loyalty and obligation that then governed society. The dilemmas posed by attention to duty (giri), emotion or humanity (ninjou), love affairs, marital difficulties, and general dramas of contemporary life are common. In some ways they are much like the modern day "soaps" but a little more sanguinary. The first sewamono is attributed to Chikamatsu Monzaemon who first wrote Sonezaki Shinjuu (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki) as a puppet play in 1703. He transferred it to the kabuki theatre in 1719. The subject matter is that of an actual double suicide which had just taken place, the result of a forbidden love affair. It set the trend for the production of a number of "double suicide" plays (shinjuu) which were subsequently banned by the authorities for provoking a rash of similar misadventures.
Shin kabuki
A new style of kabuki developed since the Meiji era. These works are influenced in part by European theatre and although staged with kabuki's production apparatus, they do not include the traditional dramatic conventions (mie, kumadori, keren etc)
