Kabuki

Finally, something cultural besides food! Ray-san and I drove down to Tokyo to watch Kabuki (ok, Ray-san drove while I thanked my lucky stars I didn’t have to – I just had to navigate, which isn’t particularly a walk in the park either). Now, the full Kabuki experience is a 6 hour long performance shown in three sections. You have dinner during the intermissions. And if you’ve actually splurged and gotten box seats, you dress the part. I think I saw more adults in kimono in one night than I’ve seen the entire time I was here.

For us less cultured slobs though, you can buy a ticket to just one of the 2 hour long segments for really cheap. And you can get earphones with English commentary for even less. You sit in the nosebleed seats, so bring binoculars. But that also means your entertainment includes all the dressed up people in the box seats.

I don’t know how old the national theater really is, but it looks like late 1800s – all red velvet and mahogany and great acoustics and those really uncomfortable seats. Cameras weren’t allowed though and they watched us gaijin like hawks so I couldn’t even sneak a couple without flash. I think that’s seriously the worst treatment I’ve gotten out here. Do we really look that disreputable? (ok, maybe I don’t want that answered)

The segment we saw was a morality play about old sins coming back to haunt you (with an element of fate thrown in –the first sin was predestined, his only crime was trying to fight it). But it’s the acting you go to see. The fight scenes in particular are really stylized. There’s not even a pretension that it’s natural. At intervals, the drums will beat once and the actors will suddenly hold their dramatic poses for a minute as the echoes die away. Cheesy as all get out, but arresting nonetheless. It’s also apparent that the poses have some meaning that adds to the scene and we’re just missing it. The death scenes went a little overboard though – talk about the embodiment of “just die already!”

And to top it off, we made it home without getting lost. At least, we don’t think going 270 degrees left around the beltway to go 90 degrees right counts as being lost because we knew we were doing it. We just couldn’t find the entrance going the other way. Maybe it’s like the bay area with exits that only work in one direction.