THEA 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Onnagata, Edo Period, Bsc Young Boys
Document Summary
Onnagata: female parts were played by female impersonators, kabuki started out mainly with women, but shifted to male actors later on as kabuki became more popular. Government decided the attention women were getting from these plays was not good for the public, so banned women from it: then people used young boys to play a woman"s role. Training: every kabuki actor is required to have fundamental predatory training. So whoever wants to be a kabuki actor must begin his training from childhood onward: japanese dancing and music are integral parts of the training, families of kabuki actors go back as far as seventeen generations. Feudal times: under feudalistic social system of the edo period, there was a veneration of family lineages that was almost like an unwritten law, while popular, kabuki actors held a low social status. In the modern day, their social status has risen to a very high point.
