Half a Century of Japanese Theater v. 7, Pt. 2; 1960s

The seventh volume in this series treats the major works of six award-winning counterculture playwrights of the 1960s. Miyamoto Ken's ""Meiji Coffin"" is a biographical play about the Christian socialist Tanaka Shozo and his involvement in the Ashio copper mine pollution problem of the early Meiji period. Fukuda Yoshiyuki's ""Oppekepe"" is a fictionalized treatment of Kawakami Otojiro's shinpa theater company that performed soshi plays, a New Wave theater form that arose in the early modernization period of Japan. Comedy Duo in ""Hibernation"" by Akihama Satoshi is a delightful absurdist piece about two family members stuck together in the snow. Akimoto Matsuyo's ""Our Lady of the Scabs"" depicts how a cult captures the hearts of its naive followers while ignoring or exploiting the truly devout. Shimizu Kunio's ""Such a Serious Frivolity"" uses the image of a queue to illustrate the docility of citizens and the defiance of youth. At ""Play with a Lion"" by Yamazaki Mazakazu treats the complex relations between the seventeenth-century ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the consummate tea artist Sen no Rikyu.