kabuki with its actors' domination and turned to the puppet theatre where their creative genius was more or less unrestricted. As a result, there was a period when puppets overshadowed actors and the puppet theatre was more popular than kabuki. To meet this competition, kabuki adopted virtually all the puppet plays. Thus, today more than half of the conventional kabuki plays except for a group of dance-dramas is of bunraku origin. A final example of kabuki's all-embracing acquisitiveness came at the end of the 19th century, which added an element of literary realism to the art (Bowers, 330). Until kabuki, the people of Japan had never seen theatre of such color, glamour, excitement and general astonishment. In these qualities, perhaps no theatre elsewhere in the world can excel the kabuki drama (Hsu, 70). There are about 300 plays in the conventional kabuki repertoire. Previously, the playwrights of the kabuki theatre itself supplied the plays almost exclusively. There is a group of plays in the repertoire designated as shosa-goto, or dance-drama, which is primarily and almost entirely dance. In the dance-drama, actors dance to the full accompaniment of vocal and instrumental music. Many plays tell a complete story, while others are scarcely more than partial dance pieces. Many of them have their origin in the noh drama and the kyogen plays. Kanjincho (The Temple Offering List),Musume Dojoji (Maiden of the Dojoji Temple), Migawari Zazen (The Substitute), and Takatsuki (The Clog Dance) are examples of the dance-drama(Mackerras, 140). The remainder of the kabuki plays may be divided into two categories from the standpoint of theme and dramatic persona. Historical dramas, known as jidai mono’s, depict historical facts or present dramatized accounts of warriors or nobles. Many of them are heavy tragedies relieved only by momentary flashes of comedy. Some of the texts come from the puppet plays and they often call upon the hero to m...