This is the first volume in a monumental four-volume series that brings together the texts of 51 kabuki plays previously untranslated into English. Edited by two outstanding kabuki scholars, the collection, the first of its kind in a quarter-century, is the result of the combined efforts of 22 translators.
The plays themselves (this first volume contains 13) represent the work of two dozen playwrights and extend from the 1697 "Shibaraku" to the 1905 "A Sinking Moon Over the Lonely Castle Where the Cuckoo Cries." They were chosen because (in addition to not having been translated before) they were thought to show "the full sweep of kabuki dramaturgy." Included are period plays, domestic plays and dance pieces -- all of them illustrated with full-color wood-block prints and color or black-and-white photographs.
Though there are many translations of plays from noh, "kyogen" and the doll-drama, there have been relatively few from kabuki. From a repertoire of nearly 300 plays, less than 20 have been translated into English. In addition, from the puppet-drama plays incorporated into kabuki, no more than a dozen have been translated.