Revenge Drama in European Renaissance and Japanese Theatre is a collection of essays that both explores the tradition of revenge drama in Japan and compares that tradition with that in European Renaissance drama. Why are the two great plays of each tradition, plays regarded as defining their nations and eras, Kanadehon Chushingura and Hamlet, both revenge plays? What do the revenge dramas of Europe and Japan tell us about the periods that produced them and how have they been modernized to speak to contemporary audiences? By interrogating the manifestation of evil women, ghosts, satire, parody, and censorship, contributors such as Leonard Pronko, J. Thomas Rimer, Carol Sorgenfrei, Laurence Kominz explore these issues.

Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. is a professor of Theatre Studies at Loyola Marymount University.

_Thinking Upon Revenge_: An Introduction - Kevin J. Wetmore * PART I: REVENGE CONTEXTS AND COMPARISONS * Closed and Open Societies: The Revenge Dramas of Japan, Spain and England - Leonard Pronko * Unsexed and Disembodied: Female Avengers in Japan and England - Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei * _Avenge Me!_ Ghosts in English Renaissance and Kabuki Revenge Dramas - Kevin J. Wetmore * Classical Adultery/Revenge Drama from Stage to Screen: Imai Tadashi_s Night Drum - Keiko McDonald * Kabuki Parodies of Blood Revenge - Lawrence Kominz * Censoring Vengeance: Revenge Dramas and Tragedies during the Allied Occupation of Japan - David Jortner * Performing Bushido: Revenge and American Kabuki Replications - Aaron D. Anderson * PART II: CHUSHINGURA: EAST AND WEST  The Horizontal Chushingura: Western Translations and Adaptations Prior to World War II - Aaron M. Cohen * Chushingura in the 1980s: Rethinking the Story of the 47 Ronin - Henry D. Smith II * One Legacy of Madame Butterfly: Chushingura as a Contemporary Opera - J. Thomas Rimer * Gender Construction and Chushingura as a Japanese National Legend - Junko Saeki * The Play_s the Thing: Cross-cultural Adaptation of Revenge Plays through Traditional Drama - Kevin J. Wetmore