Author’s Introduction

When looking at photographs of Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the time that he was known as SCAP, one sees next to him a tall, aristocratic-looking young man. He is dressed in military uniform and hat, his mouth drawn tight, and his face rather serious. His name is Faubion Bowers, a twenty- eight-year-old army major when he arrived in . He served as Mac- Arthur’s aide-de-camp and as his interpreter during the early Occupation. Bowers lived in one of the apartments at the foot of the American embassy in ’s Akasaka section, which is where MacArthur was domi- ciled, and he was assigned a small office next to MacArthur’s at General Headquarters (GHQ) in the Dai-Ichi Insurance Building (Dai-Ichi Seimei Biru). They rode together to and from the embassy and office. Without Bowers’s permission, even high members of the Japanese government or top-ranking GHQ officers could not meet with the general. Bowers worked both as translator and as MacArthur’s secretary, so he took part in many of postwar Japan’s historical incidents, including the first meeting between Emperor and MacArthur. But the reason that Bowers’s name is remembered is for more than his job as MacArthur’s aide. He was the man who saved . He was a kabuki connoisseur and scholar who knew more about this theatre than most Japanese. Few kabuki actors do not know his name. As MacArthur’s GHQ Occupation policies got under way, kabuki was quickly banished because it was deemed an obstacle to the democratiza- tion of Japan. Its appreciation of feudal virtues, such as loyalty to one’s lord, seppuku (or harakiri), and revenge were beyond the pale. In fact, two-thirds of the available kabuki scripts, including classical dramas, dances, and modern kabuki (shin kabuki), were forbidden. It was Faubion Bowers who was responsible for their revival. This highly placed young man opposed MacArthur’s cultural policies and overturned those that had controlled kabuki for two years. It is a historical irony that working for GHQ was an ambivalent young American who served two flags, that of America and that of kabuki. The irony was that he saved the 350-year-old kabuki from imminent death while simultaneously protecting America from the stigma

xv xvi Author’s Introduction of being the destroyer of one of Japan’s traditional and precious cultural treasures. Remove Bowers from the early days of the Occupation and you would not be able to speak of the kabuki we know today. Who knows what would have happened if there had not been someone of his sympathy and knowledge? Kabuki’s existence might have been prolonged for a time, but it would have taken many years before it was restored to its prior state, and it would not have been able to avoid a change in its character. In this sense, we can only be grateful that this young kabuki lover served in America’s Occupation forces and, moreover, held a high position as MacArthur’s aide. In May and December 1997, I visited Faubion Bowers in New York. He rewound the film of his Occupation memories from fifty years earlier, zooming in and out on plays he had released from censorship. What kind of scenes came into focus? The film of his memory had dulled over the years, but the vague images that arise dance clearly in my eyes. h,H

I first became interested in this project in the early spring of 1996, when my friend, actor-director Hori Teruhiko, asked me if I knew Faubion Bowers. Bowers had done the simultaneous translation for a play in which Hori acted in New York. Hori told me about some of the circumstances in which, when GHQ banned kabuki, Bowers had lifted the censorship. At the time, I had no knowledge about any of these events. To me, born in 1946, the history of the Occupationwhich ran from 1945 to April 28, 1952, when it ended with the signing of the peace treaty in San Franciscowas fairly close to my own history. Whatever I may have learned of it in grade school seems to have made little impression. When I heard Hori’s story, though, I thought that researching kabuki censorship would be a good chance to learn about the Occupation years, a good way to fill in the blanks in my own history. I already had been thinking that I wanted to learn about my own life’s starting point, that is to say the start- ing point of postwar Japan during the Occupation. After looking a bit into prewar and postwar kabuki trends, I began my research in earnest in the fall of 1996. This book’s main theme is the banishment and liberation of kabuki under the Occupation, a record of kabuki’s hell and heaven. I also intended it as a record of the Occupation’s witchhunt from which kabuki suffered as a representative Japanese performing art. In the original, Japanese, version of this book, I introduced subjects not specifically related to kabuki’s problems. I recounted the outlines of the Author’s Introduction xvii war in the Pacific and MacArthur’s role in the Allies’s victory. I discussed whether, in surrendering under the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, Japan had done so conditionally or unconditionally. I examined what might have been said at the historic first meeting between MacArthur and Hirohito. I looked into the problem of the emperor’s war responsibility. I pondered broad questions of culture and kabuki’s place in it. However, Samuel L. Leiter, my translator, convinced me that for English readers, much of this would be irrelevant, as it pulled the focus from what I wanted to be my prime objective, which was to tell about kabuki under the Occupation. As a result, in this English version, most of my discussions of matters periph- eral to Bowers’s contributions have been eliminated. As explained in Dr. Leiter’s introduction, other changes were also made. I realized that much research had been done on the political, eco- nomic, and social aspects of the Occupation but that very little was avail- able on the cultural side. Many scholars, Japanese included, have gone over and over Japan’s postwar reforms and changes; and there have been many studies of postwar revolutions in science and technology and in ideas and lifestyles. But the number of postwar cultural studies was very slim. How exactly did Japan’s culture clash with Occupation policy? This book is the first to deal exclusively with this clash in terms of Japan’s clas- sical kabuki theatre. If one word could sum up MacArthur’s Occupation policies with regard to Japan’s previous living standards it would be “denial.” The Occu- pation tried to destroy the entire structure of Japan’s history and to create a new one in its place. It tried to establish something entirely different from traditional foundations and ideas, to eliminate unchanging principles peculiar to Japan. MacArthur sought to replace Japan’s acidic soil with alkali soil in an effort to change the indigenous vegetation. More than a half-century after the war, we must acknowledge that changes in the legal system and in science, technology, and lifestyle were accomplished pretty much as the Americans desired, although there are various opinions about the results. However, in the cultural sphere, success is more dubious. Today’s culture points to the particular principles that flow through Japanese blood as social genes and to the most basic qualities that determine what it is to be Japanese. Did or did not Japan’s basic qualities, that is, its culture and people, change? Is it or is it not possible for it to change? Ultimately, when we consider the Occupation’s cultural policy in terms of its treatment of kabuki, we cannot escape these problems. Despite some experience as a theatre and music journalist in Osaka, I still do not consider myself a theatre specialist. But I think that my love for xviii Author’s Introduction kabuki, both spiritually and materially, has inspired my writing of this book. The late Faubion Bowers was of inestimable help during my two research visits to New York. I also wish to express my gratitude to Mr. Kamaya Masa- nori, who serves as the representative of the Rissh Kseikai Buddhist organization at the United Nations, in , and who kindly twice served as my interpreter in America. In addition, my thanks go to various people in the kabuki world and to friends and acquaintances of Mr. Bowers who happily responded to my requests for information. Professor Kawatake Toshio of Waseda University allowed me access to materials belonging to his late father, Professor Kawatake Shigetoshi. And I want to thank Messrs. Nakano Kazuo and Hosokawa Rysei of the Sheisha Publishing Company, as well as members of its editorial staff, for their helpful encouragement.

Shiro Okamoto