Shinpa (新派) (also renderedshimpa) is a modern form oftheater in Japan usually featuring melodramatic stories, contrasted with the more traditionalkabuki style. Taking its start in the 1880s, it later spread to cinema.
Theatre historians have characterizedshinpa as a transitional movement, closely associated with theMeiji restoration, whose primary rationale was the rejection of "old" values in favor of material that would appeal to a partially westernized urban middle class which still maintained some traditional habits of thought.[1] Some of the innovations associated withshinpa included shortened performance times, the re-introduction of female performers to the stage, the abolition of teahouses that had previously controlled ticket sales, and the frequent adaptation of western classics, such as the plays ofShakespeare andThe Count of Monte Cristo.[1] It eventually earned the nameshinpa (literally meaning "new school") to contrast it fromkyūha ("old school" orkabuki) due its more contemporary and realistic stories.[2] Social and political struggles became new dramatic subjects,[3] as did patriotic events.[1] Aesthetically,shinpa performances distinguished themselves by darkenedauditoriums, orchestra areas and scenery changes, and elaborate stage lighting.[3]
The roots ofshinpa can be traced to a form ofagitation propaganda theater in the 1880s promoted byLiberal Party membersSadanori Sudō andOtojirō Kawakami.[2] After the dissolution of the Liberal Party in 1884, Sudō became a founding member of the Dainippon geigeki kyōfūkai ("Great Japan society for the reformation of theatre") as a means of an opposition against the conservative government, but its impact was only modest.[3] Kawakami formed his own theatre troupe in 1891 and celebrated his biggest success with the patriotic playKawakami Otojirō semchi kenbunki ("Kawakami Otojirō reports from the battlefield"), which thematised Japan's victory in theFirst Sino-Japanese War.[3] Beginning in 1903, Kawakami and his wifeYakko Sada, who both had previously appeared on stage in Europe, introduced plays by Shakespeare,Maurice Maeterlinck andVictorien Sardou to Japanese audiences.[3][4]
As a theatrical form,shinpa was most successful in the early 1900s as the works of novelists such asKyōka Izumi,Kōyō Ozaki, andRoka Tokutomi were adapted for the stage.[2] Notable groups were the Seibikan, the Seibidan, the Isamiengeki and the Hongōza, and actors likeYōhō Ii,Minoru Takada andRokurō Kitamura grew to fame and shaped the new movement.[3] Although only short-lived,[3] the Seibidan troupe was successful with a more conservative form that was closer tokabuki than to the latershingeki ("new drama") because of its continued use ofonnagata and off-stage music.[2][5]
On the stage,shinpa was less successful after theTaishō era, but playwrights such asMatsutarō Kawaguchi, actresses likeYaeko Mizutani and actors like Kitamura andShōtarō Hanayagi helped keep the form alive.[2]Shinpa also had an influence on modernKorean theater through theshinp’a (신파) genre.[6]
With the introduction of cinema in Japan,shinpa became one of the first film genres in opposition again tokyūha films, as many films were based onshinpa plays.[7] Someshinpa stage actors likeMasao Inoue were heavily involved in film, and a form calledrensageki ("chain drama") appeared which mixed film (for exterior scenes) and theater on stage.[8] With the rise of the reformistPure Film Movement in the 1910s, which strongly criticizedshinpa films for their melodramatic tales of women suffering from the strictures of class and social prejudice, films about contemporary subjects eventually were calledgendaigeki in opposition to historicaljidaigeki by the 1920s, even thoughshinpa stories continued to be made into films for decades to come.[7]
ISBN0521434378 shinp'a.
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