James Roger Brandon (1927-2015) was born in Mazomanie, Wisconsin. Brandon considered himself a “farm kid from Minnesota” in describing his early life. In high school, a teacher encouraged him to study acting. This sparked his interest, and he pursued studying theatre in his university studies. He received his baccalaureate and master’s degrees in theatre and speech from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1948 and 1949 respectively.

In 1950, Brandon was drafted into the Korean War and was stationed in Japan and Korea. He saw his first kabuki play two days before his tour of duty ended. The performance hooked him on kabuki and influenced his subsequent studies. After his service, supported by his GI Bill, Brandon returned to UW-Madison to work on his PhD in theatre and television. After graduating in 1955, he joined the U.S. Foreign Service as a cultural affairs officer and was stationed in Jakarta, Indonesia from 1955 to 1957. While in Indonesia, he frequented many theatrical performances; these eventually motivated him to publish his monograph Theatre in Southeast Asia in 1967.

Brandon left the Foreign Service in 1961 and began teaching at Michigan State University, where he directed two kabuki plays and a modern Japanese drama. After MSU, he returned to Southeast Asia to research theatre in the region, including the wayang theatre of Indonesia. He then joined the faculty at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa as a professor of theatre and drama in 1968.

While at UHM, he established the Asian Theatre Program, brought international recognition to the Department of Theatre and Dance through his scholarship and large-scale productions of English language kabuki productions, co-founded the Asian Theatre Journal, and served as department chair from 1985 to 1988.

During his academic tenure, he authored approximately eighty articles, book chapters, and book reviews. He published twenty books on themes of Asian theatre, kabuki censorship, as well as English translations of kabuki plays. He also produced twenty-two productions at UHM.

His awards and recognitions include the Imperial Decoration of the Order of the Rising Sun with Gold Rays with Rosette from the Government of Japan, the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award from the Asian Cultural Council, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hawaiʻi State Theatre Council, the UH Regents’ Medal for Outstanding Teaching, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year award, national recognition from the American College Theatre Festival, and several Poʻokela awards from the Hawaiʻi State Theatre Council.

In 2000, Brandon retired from UHM and continued researching kabuki theatre. He published his groundbreaking work Kabuki’s Forgotten War: 1931-1945 in 2008 that examined presumed truths about kabuki theatre in the nineteenth century and the Japanese government’s censorship of kabuki theatre in the early twentieth century. This work received an Outstanding Academic Title for 2009 by the American Library Association’s Choice magazine.

Brandon passed away on September 19th, 2015 in Honolulu. “I know of no other person who has accomplished as much as he has done – taking the work of one country (Japan) and presenting it so beautifully,” Terence Knapp, a UH colleague of Brandon’s, said. Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak, professor in the UH Asian Theatre Program, said that he was “one of the finest teachers I’ve ever known.” Brandon left a lasting impact at UHM, its theatre program, and the English research of kabuki.

1) David Jortner and Kathy Foley, “James R. Brandon,” Asian Theatre Journal 2 (2001), 343. 2) Ibid., 344. 3) “In Memoriam: Asian theatre pioneer James Brandon,” University of Hawaiʻi News (Honolulu HI), September 28, 2015, accessed February 14, 2018, http://www.hawaii.edu/news/2015/09/28/in-memoriam-asian-theatre-pioneer-james-brandon/ 4) “James R. Brandon / 1927-2015” Honolulu Star-Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), October 1, 2015, accessed February 14, 2018, http://obits.staradvertiser.com/2015/10/01/james-r-brandon-1927-2015/