Description

‘Kabuki’ is a form of Japanese dance-drama dating from the 17th century, based on popular themes, with male and female roles performed by men only, chiefly in formalized pantomime, dance and song.

Kabuki Play combines the influence of the Japanese woodblock with icons of American pop culture. Walt Disney’s Donald Duck – a familiar image from his own youth that seemed to celebrate an idealized American life – appears to be handing the American woman a little pearl while the Japanese kimono-clad woman watches; a Japanese sword prepares to cut a cord held above his head by a more-than-likely famous Japanese Kabuki male ‘player’ probably ‘borrowed’ from a painting by another artist; and in the background we see an image of a bomber with the well-known cultural insignia, a red sun, signifying Japan as the Land of the Rising Sun, painted on it.