Princess Kiku: A Japanese Romance. A Play for Girls

Hutchinson, M. F.Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.3

Word count: 94K words
Chapters: 10

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Princess Kiku: A Japanese Romance. A Play for Girls by M. F. HutchinsonAuthor: Hutchinson, M. F.,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Feb 21, 2019

Editor's review

Princess Kiku: A Japanese Romance. A Play for Girls is an English-language play set against a Japanese romance, written specifically for performance by girls. It falls under American and Canadian literature, is short, and is structured for staging by school or community groups. Its value lies in providing a cross-cultural stage text that can be used for English drama activities and can also prompt discussion of how foreign images are adapted. When reading, pay attention to character assignment, scene setting, and dialogue style, and consider the cultural imagination and period markers involved. As a free Project Gutenberg e-book, it is easy to obtain and suitable as a backup script for drama clubs or supplementary material for literature classes. Note that it is an old play for performance by girls; today's readers should view its gender roles and cultural depictions with a critical eye.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Teachers leading school or community drama clubs looking for scripts for girls to perform
Teachers needing short play texts for role reading in English classes
Readers interested in cross-cultural drama and early girls' plays
Literature students studying the representation of Japan in American literature

Not a good fit for

General literary readers hoping to read a full-length novel
Professionals needing stage production manuals and directing plans
Readers sensitive to gender and cultural stereotypes in old plays
Creators seeking contemporary original scripts set in Japan

Reading tips

First read the whole play and mark the character list and scene changes to assess the number of performers and props needed.
Organize a read-through with participants reading roles aloud to feel the dialogue rhythm and role suitability.
Before rehearsal, discuss the cultural depictions and gender assumptions in the script and decide whether to adapt or add explanatory notes.
Read alongside other girls' plays of the same period to understand the writing conventions of such scripts.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What age group of girls is this play suitable for?

The material does not specify an age recommendation. Given its nature as 'a play for girls,' it is more suitable for teenage girls' groups with some English reading ability; whether it suits younger children should be assessed by the instructor based on dialogue difficulty and subject matter.

Is the Japanese setting in the play real history or a fictional romance?

Judging from the title 'A Japanese Romance,' it is a romantic story play set in Japan—a literary creation rather than historical record. Readers should treat it as a stage text carrying period cultural imagination, not as material on Japanese history or folklore.

How many actors and props are needed to stage this play?

The material does not provide a character count or prop list; this must be determined after reading the full text based on the character list and scene indications. Instructors are advised to read the play first, list the characters and scene requirements, and then decide whether to simplify roles or use a minimalist stage treatment.

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About the author

Hutchinson, M. F. Author

M. F. Hutchinson is an author about whom little public information is available; only one work is held in the collection, Princess Kiku: A Japanese Romance. A Play for Girls. The title indicates a romantic play set in Japan with an exotic flavour, explicitly addressed to girl readers and belonging to drama written for young women. Combining Japanese characters with a love story, such material in the popular English literature and school theatrical tradition of the period was typically both entertaining and suited to staging. As the author's life, nationality and dates cannot be verified, this note makes no conjectures about personal history and describes only the orientation evident in the surviving work: it centres on the emotions and growth of female characters, with language and scenes suitable for young readers and performance.