The Mainspring’s Game and Other Writings

'A government clerk is praised for a clever desk calendar and begins dreaming of life as an inventor. Sunshades, mousetraps, mechanical toys, and spinning tops promise success, while his family waits for his attention and his sick son struggles to recover. In The Mainspring’s Game, Kishida Kunio turns these ordinary hopes into a visually inventive silent-film script.

Seven accompanying essays explore French theater and writers: Crommelynck, Jean-Jacques Bernard, Saint-Georges de Bouhélier, Charles Vildrac, Jacques Copeau, Jean Cocteau, Jules Renard, and Georges Courteline. Kishida recounts rehearsals and artistic encounters, weighs the pleasures and difficulties of translation, and asks how comedy reveals character and social life.

A central figure in modern Japanese theater, Kishida writes with critical precision, humor, and a sharp awareness of disappointment. The complete five-reel screenplay and all seven essays are presented in the supplied order, with every scene, visual direction, letter, and dialogue preserved. Concise notes clarify names, literary references, and textual irregularities.