Paper presented at the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) Annual Conference. Abstract This article examines how festive environments shape the dramaturgy of two Japanese plays set during collective celebrations: Shiroari no Su by Yukio Mishima, set during Carnival in Brazil, and Mahoroba by Ryuta Horai, set during a local Matsuri in Japan.Rather than serving merely as cultural background, Carnival and Matsuri structure the dramatic worlds of the plays, shaping their affective climates and intensifying the tensions that emerge within domestic and interpersonal relations.Drawing on theories of ritual, festivity, and liminality, the paper argues that these festive environments operate as dramaturgies of tension, in which collective celebration coexists with conflict, repression, and emotional rupture. In both plays, the vitality of the festival does not dissolve private crises; instead, it amplifies them, exposing the fragility of social bonds and the instability of communal life.By examining how moments of celebration intersect with experiences of stagnation, estrangement, and crisis, the paper suggests that Carnival and Matsuri function as performative thresholds through which characters confront unresolved contradictions between belonging, desire, and social expectation. In this sense, the festivals emerge not as simple expressions of unity but as dramaturgical frameworks that stage the unstable boundaries between order and disorder, community and isolation, joy and catastrophe.
Alice Kiyomi Yagyu (Wed,) studied this question.