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Yose (Japanese: 寄席) is a form of spoken vaudeville theatre of Japan cultivated since the 18th century. The term also refers to the exclusive theater where yose is held.
A number of variants existed:
and others.
The main direction was the kōdan, the narrative stories. The beginning goes back to the beginning of the Edo period, to the Taiheiki-yomi (太平記読), the recitation of the Taiheiki. In addition, there were military stories such as the "revenge stories" (仇討物, Adauchi-mono), "chivalric stories" (俠客物, Kyōgaku-mono), "civic stories" (世話物), etc. When this form of lecture developed, it was called Kōshaku (講釈), roughly "Explanatory Lectures", and was only common in places where the bushi (武士), i.e. the Japanese nobility, played a role in which the common people were interested. The lecturers, called hanashi-ka (噺家), corresponded to the rakugo narrators of the present day.
A well-known lecturer at the end of the Edo period into the Meiji era was San'yūtei Enchō (三遊亭 圓朝; 1839-1900), who was a master of all variants and laid the foundation for modern performance practice. He published his lectures under the title "Peony Lantern" (牡丹燈籠, Botan dōrō) and Shiobara Tasuke (塩原多助). The later Kaidan botan dōrō (怪談牡丹燈籠) from 1884 was also successful, with Enchō's lectures having been taken down in shorthand.
Small theatre spaces typically seating 200 people existed for performances. Most theatres operated on an Iromonoseki (色物席) basis, i.e., after a series of younger lecturers, the master performed. Around 1900, 70 such theatres were still active, of which the Suehiro-tei (末廣亭) in Shinjuku district, the Tachibana-tei (立花亭) in Kanda and the Suzumoto-tei (鈴本亭) in Ueno were the best known. They were broadcast on radio from the 1920s onwards, while most yose theatres later had to close due to the surge in Film competition. So the yose lives on today on television and radio and in special . Other forms include Manzai (漫才) and Naniwa-bushi (浪花節).
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