The Man Who Saved Kabuki: Faubion Bowers and Theatre Censorship in Occupied Japan

5. How Faubion Bowers “Saved” Kabuki

66 How Faubion Bowers “Saved” Kabuki As noted in Chapter 4, the examination of kabuki plays by GHQ’s Civil Information and Education Section (CI&E)—known before September 22 as the Information Dissemination Section—and Sh
chiku during the four days from December 4 through 7, 1945, resulted in 174 plays being given the green light. Since no more than about one-third of the approximately 500 plays examined were permitted, this was an ominous moment for Sh
 chiku and its actors. Still, their reception by the censors, such as Capt. John Boruff, was gentlemanly and polite and temporarily put the company at ease. A mere month later, however, Boruff finished his work, returned to the United States, and the wind suddenly shifted. Boruff was succeeded by Lt. Hal Keith, who, unlike Boruff, was aggressive and overbearing.1 According to Kawatake Shigetoshi’s previously cited 1961 Engekikai essay, on January 10, 1946, Sh
chiku gave a farewell party for Boruff at the Sakae-ya, a fashionable restaurant near the Shinbashi Enbuj
.2 Boruff’s successor, Keith, was also present, while Sh
chiku was represented by its president, tani Takejir
 The seven members of the Association for the Examination of Entertainment and Culture—assigned to examine the Occupation performing arts and culture—as well as Mrs. Vaccari, the interpreter, also attended. Sashimi and sake, both very hard to come by in those early postwar days, were served, all having been obtained from the black market. According to Kawatake, Boruff, after knocking back one cup of sake after another, rose to say: How Faubion Bowers “Saved” Kabuki 67 Up to now, I’ve plowed through GHQ criticisms and have saved kabuki. But that’s as far as I can go. A list of permissible plays has been created, but if possible I’d like to have you avoid producing classic works. Of the plays you’ve produced so far, 30 percent have been modern dramas, but I’d like to see this increased to 50 percent, or half your output. It will be embarrassing for me if you don’t.3 It was a heavy enough burden for Sh
chiku to produce modern plays as one-third of its repertory; splitting its productions fifty-fifty was simply out of the question. There was no way that modern plays could draw audiences the way that classical ones did. When Sh
chiku began to object, Mrs. Vaccari interrupted to remind them, in Japanese, that CI&E was inflexible , that Boruff’s position was being vacated, and that his successor, Lt. Keith, was present. Sh
chiku clammed up tight. Quiet settled over the place. Someone sang the lyrics as Atsumi Seitar
played the “Koi no Tenarai” (Practicing Love’s Penmanship) section from the kabuki dance Musume D
j
ji on the shamisen. Boruff’s farewell party marked the end of good relations between GHQ and Sh
chiku. The next day, January 11, Sh
chiku’s management was ordered to report to CI&E at 11:00 A.M. When three members of the script department went to find out what was happening, they were met by Keith and three or four other censors, Earle Ernst among them. Keith spoke to them harshly: Kabuki is completely feudal and flies in the face of today’s democratization . Sh
chiku’s kabuki performances contradict Articles 6 and 10 of the Potsdam Declaration, but they are recognized as traditional art and have received special permission. From now on, you are to produce 50 percent or more modern dramas and encourage democratization. If you don’t do this, all kabuki performance will be forbidden.4 One of Sh
chiku’s script department officials later complained to Kawatake that the Boruff farewell party had had the opposite effect of what was intended. For one thing, the splashy reception for GHQ (with black market food) led to ill feelings among the Japanese. Also, while Atsumi’s shamisen playing had brightened the party, the censors appear to have regarded it as evidence that the Japanese were proselytizing for kabuki. And, most of all, it was not considered wise to have had tani Takejir
, president of Sh
chiku, there. That is to say, Sh
chiku and T
h
, as the greatest film and theatre entertainment conglomerates, were at the top of the list of companies that were to be eliminated or dismantled—“purged” 68 How Faubion Bowers “Saved” Kabuki in GHQ parlance—because of their monopolies. Later, in fact...