The first kabuki troupes were of women. Their dances and skits and association with prostitution led to public disturbances, and finally in 1629 to a government ban on female performers. Young men (wakashu) then took their place but were banned in 1652 for the same reasons. After that adult male (yaro) kabuki came into being and began to develop as theatre from its origins in dance.

This focus on dance and the sensuality of the body and voice spurred kabuki to develop as an ‘actors’ theatre’. This meant that actors were in charge of theatres and productions, and that playwrights were hired to compose plays for the star actors. Everything - props, costumes, music, words - must support the star actor’s performance. The Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein saw this as the genius of kabuki theatre when he encountered a kabuki performance in Moscow in 1928. The art of the female role performer (onnagata) developed to sophisticated levels. The Actors’ Analects, translated by C Dunn and B Torigoe (1970), is a fascinating treatise by 18th century actors on the art of kabuki.

Kabuki has always been ‘contemporary’ theatre and is eclectic, taking in and adapting whatever was popular at the time. It borrowed plays from noh, kyogen, bunraku, popular ballads, fiction and legends, always refashioning them to suit the particular star actors of the time.

Unlike noh or bunraku, kabuki did not publish complete ‘official’ texts of its productions. It kept the actors’ performance as the focus. Like Shakespeare’s plays, scripts were considered the property of the theatres. Kabuki remained very much an oral tradition in which playwrights and performers were expected to produce a ‘new’ play for each new production. Manuscripts of plays (daihon or daicho) did circulate, but publication of texts was usually in illustrated summary editions. Woodblock actor prints brought actors into homes throughout Japan, much like the celebrity magazines of today. This cult of the actor led to the creation of actors as superstars and brought many of them fabulous wealth. This was in spite of the fact that the actors’ official status remained as social ‘outcasts’, ‘riverbed beggars’ (hinin, kawara kojiki) until the 1870s. Large permanent theatres also were licensed by the government and restricted to certain entertainment districts. Like the licensed brothels, kabuki was always considered an ‘immoral sphere’ (akusho) by officialdom. This helps us understand the kabuki love of the underdog, low villains, outlandish characters and anti-heroes. It was the world of fantasy, and was popular with women as well as men. Star kabuki actors have the same allure and glamour as today’s Hollywood celebrities.

Texts do survive and we have a large number of English translations. A recent project to publish a series of four volumes of previously untranslated plays has given us a representative sample of the vast tradition of plays produced in Kyoto, Osaka and Edo (Tokyo): Kabuki Plays on Stage, ed by J Brandon and S Leiter (2002-). These complement other translations listed in the Ortolani book referred to at the beginning of this section.

Although different in techniques, noh and bunraku are similar in their seriousness of purpose, their sense of historical continuity, and their focus on human tragedy. Likewise, kyogen and kabuki share a similar sense of humour, of joie de vivre, of living for the moment, of satire, and of turning the world upside down.

Kabuki has survived into the modern era as commercial theatre. The National Theatre does subsidise some performances, but most productions are commercial and nearly all the actors have contracts with the Shochiku Company. Kabuki still makes money as popular theatre, although it is no as longer popular as it was before World War 2.

Kabuki productions abroad have been successful, both as grand kabuki and as smaller-scale demonstrations from the first trips in the early 20th century. Kabuki acting styles and training techniques have also been of interest to many in the west from early in the 20th century. Kabuki’s image as an actor-centred and total theatre (music, dance, gesture, song, declamation), marked by formal, yet realistic acting and voice, have been a constant source of inspiration for westerners, who have felt that modern drama’s sacrifice of theatricality for realism has left the stage sparse of the techniques once available to create powerful theatre. The art of the female role actor also has intrigued many performers and scholars/critics around the world, including Mark Rylance of London’s Shakespeare Globe Theatre, who has used it as an inspiration to revive all-male Shakespeare productions.