SOURCE: Kominz, Laurence. “Ya no Ne: The Genesis of a Kabuki Aragoto Classic.” Monumenta Nipponica 48, No. 4 (Winter, 1983): 387-407.

In the following excerpt, Kominz discusses the modification of the story Soga Monogatarai to provide the essential premises for the Kabuki play Ya no Ne, and points out that the most important differences in the Kabuki version are its New Year setting, the strength and determination of the central character and vitruosity required of the actor playing him, and the emphasis on visual effects. Ideographic characters in this essay have been silently removed. This essay has been slightly revised by the author for reprint here.

The kabuki of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was essentially an actor's art. We know most plays by title only and it is often difficult to determine the authorship of the texts that have survived, but a wealth of detail remains telling us which...