SOURCE: "Visionary Gleams," in Encounter, Vol. LXXII, No. 5, May, 1989, pp. 25-8.

In the following essay, Takahashi provides a survey of Japanese theater from the 1960s to the late 1980s.

Statistically, there is little doubt that Tokyo is the world's largest theatre town, even surpassing New York. Probably there are many Japanese, especially outside Tokyo, who would be surprised to know that there are in their megalo-capital about 250 theatre companies, about 120 plays put on every month, and about 60 acting spaces. This includes large companies which produce a play per month, and tiny ones which may disappear after a single show; productions ranging from new plays to Noh, Kabuki, Bunraku, and foreign plays in translation; and small studios or other spaces turned into ad hoc theatres as well as regular playhouses.

Statistics, however, is a dreary and deceptive business—revealing more about economics than about culture. One can go for...