Contemporary French Playwrights and Other Essays

What makes a play alive? Kishida Kunio approaches the question through four lively essays on Japanese and French theater, moving between intimate portraits of writers, practical criticism of amateur performance, and the history of dramatic experiment.

The longest essay traces contemporary French playwrights from the Théâtre Libre through the years after the First World War. Becque, Porto-Riche, Courteline, Claudel, Romains, Lenormand, and others appear in searching assessments of realism, poetry, psychology, and the possibilities of the stage. The final essay brings a parliamentary dispute over Goncourt’s Élisa into view, preserving arguments, interruptions, laughter, and competing definitions of public morality.

A major figure in modern Japanese drama, Kishida writes with conviction, wit, and an alertness to the actor’s art. These complete translations retain the essays’ original order and section divisions, with concise notes explaining unfamiliar names, play titles, textual readings, and historical inconsistencies.