So spring break was about a month and a half ago and I was fairly busy over the week. On Monday of that week I had a friend invite me to a Kabuki Theater show of which I was in the middle of a rather lengthy post about when it got deleted by me unwittingly closing out of the application.
First, a comment on the style of kabuki. first thing that will strike you about any Kabuki theater is the production is always beautiful. The sets are especially gorgeous, but the main idea behind Kabuki is beauty. The actors, the sets, the costumes, the acting must all be done to portray beauty. The delivery is of course different than any western play. The dialogue seems very formal and has a lot of style to it. The fight scenes don't make much of an attempt to give the perception of real fighting, instead it's more of the waving of hands that causes people to tumble, as if the movement was so strong that it caused the air to force the person to move. Lastly on the style, Kabuki is always 100% male actors, so no female actors playing any of the roles and apparently the best actors are versatile and able to play both male and female roles. That is to say, there is no relegation for a man to play a female role. This comment isn't on the style, it's just something that struck me as odd. After the first play (which was 2 hours) there was an extended intermission that lasted about 30 minutes in which everyone around us got out obentos (lunch boxes) and started eating, right in the middle of the theatre. Neither my friends nor I were prepared for this.
Moving on here my brief synopsis of the three plays I saw:
The first play was about a man who was the head farmer of a village that is being overtaxed by the lord in charge of the land. He is asked by one of the farmers to do something about it, and the only thing he can do is make an appeal to the Shogun (essentially emperor) to cease the oppression of the lord who owned the land. Approaching the shogun without approval meant death without question. So he was basically going on a suicide mission.
The biggest comment from this play was that it had quite a bit of crying. The main character spent most of his time on stage crying, or at least it seemed he did. Lots of tears. THe biggest reason this struck me is that I was told to never cry in public by someone before I came, so to see a main character of a play cry as much as he did struck me as a little odd. As I think about it though, the notion I had on the matter coming to Japan was wrong. The Japanese are an emotional people, and aren't afraid to show it as long as the emotion is appropriate. So, crying at the death of a loved one = appropriate.
The second play I think was called, Tozumo, it was about the top sumo in Japan who went to wrestle in China as entertainment for the Chinese emperor. After being their for years he asks the emperor to return home as he is getting home sick. The emperor grants him his wish on the conditoin of one last show. So the sumo agrees and fights waves of an increasingly large number Chinese people, and all the time getting drunker as he downs nearly a bottle of sake after each bout. Eventually it gets to the point where the sumo is so drunk he can barely stand and then the emperor challenges him. Being a Japanese play the sumo has no problem defeating the emperor and he is granted his permission to leave.
The main comment about this is that this play was extremely racist and not shy about it at all. Almost all of the Chinese characters in the play were more like charicatures and the emperor was the worst of them all, essentially a cartoon. Also, any of the dialogue that was Chinese in the play was instead non-sensical jibberish. The last evidence was again, a totally trashed sumo being able to take on what ended up being a dozen Chinese palace guards at once and defeating them with no issue. All that said, the crowd laughed and everyone enjoyed the play, so as long as no one cares I guess.
The last play was a love story that is too complicated for me to remember. I apologize, but it's been too long. ごめんなさい. (Gomennasai - sorry).
More posted soon. Until then, peace out!
First, a comment on the style of kabuki. first thing that will strike you about any Kabuki theater is the production is always beautiful. The sets are especially gorgeous, but the main idea behind Kabuki is beauty. The actors, the sets, the costumes, the acting must all be done to portray beauty. The delivery is of course different than any western play. The dialogue seems very formal and has a lot of style to it. The fight scenes don't make much of an attempt to give the perception of real fighting, instead it's more of the waving of hands that causes people to tumble, as if the movement was so strong that it caused the air to force the person to move. Lastly on the style, Kabuki is always 100% male actors, so no female actors playing any of the roles and apparently the best actors are versatile and able to play both male and female roles. That is to say, there is no relegation for a man to play a female role. This comment isn't on the style, it's just something that struck me as odd. After the first play (which was 2 hours) there was an extended intermission that lasted about 30 minutes in which everyone around us got out obentos (lunch boxes) and started eating, right in the middle of the theatre. Neither my friends nor I were prepared for this.
Moving on here my brief synopsis of the three plays I saw:
The first play was about a man who was the head farmer of a village that is being overtaxed by the lord in charge of the land. He is asked by one of the farmers to do something about it, and the only thing he can do is make an appeal to the Shogun (essentially emperor) to cease the oppression of the lord who owned the land. Approaching the shogun without approval meant death without question. So he was basically going on a suicide mission.
The biggest comment from this play was that it had quite a bit of crying. The main character spent most of his time on stage crying, or at least it seemed he did. Lots of tears. THe biggest reason this struck me is that I was told to never cry in public by someone before I came, so to see a main character of a play cry as much as he did struck me as a little odd. As I think about it though, the notion I had on the matter coming to Japan was wrong. The Japanese are an emotional people, and aren't afraid to show it as long as the emotion is appropriate. So, crying at the death of a loved one = appropriate.
The second play I think was called, Tozumo, it was about the top sumo in Japan who went to wrestle in China as entertainment for the Chinese emperor. After being their for years he asks the emperor to return home as he is getting home sick. The emperor grants him his wish on the conditoin of one last show. So the sumo agrees and fights waves of an increasingly large number Chinese people, and all the time getting drunker as he downs nearly a bottle of sake after each bout. Eventually it gets to the point where the sumo is so drunk he can barely stand and then the emperor challenges him. Being a Japanese play the sumo has no problem defeating the emperor and he is granted his permission to leave.
The main comment about this is that this play was extremely racist and not shy about it at all. Almost all of the Chinese characters in the play were more like charicatures and the emperor was the worst of them all, essentially a cartoon. Also, any of the dialogue that was Chinese in the play was instead non-sensical jibberish. The last evidence was again, a totally trashed sumo being able to take on what ended up being a dozen Chinese palace guards at once and defeating them with no issue. All that said, the crowd laughed and everyone enjoyed the play, so as long as no one cares I guess.
The last play was a love story that is too complicated for me to remember. I apologize, but it's been too long. ごめんなさい. (Gomennasai - sorry).
More posted soon. Until then, peace out!
I'm glad you enjoyed....
ReplyDeleteI guess you forgot about the clams..... hahaha... totally irrelevant.....hahaha