Unusual new kabuki plays based on world-famous stories are currently being performed at Tokyo's three major theaters, adapted respectively from a fairy tale, a manga and a comedy film. Each is a novel endeavor, yet viewers can still sense the plays' strong commitment to "kabuki style" throughout.
A musical drama
Bando Tamasaburo is performing the lead role in "Honcho Shirayukihime Monogatari," an adaptation of Grimms' fairy tale "Snow White'' in the evening show of the December lineup at the Kabukiza Theatre in Higashiginza through Dec. 26.
Tamasaburo, a top performer of onnagata female roles, had the idea to perform the show. "It was fun," he said, when he played Snow White at the 2007 Actors Festival, a one-day event dedicated to fans.
"I had a new script written by a person [a kyogen playwright] inside Kabukiza who knows the theater's space and its actors. The original storyline is hardly changed, but [the script] needed to be a kabuki piece," Tamasaburo said.
In addition to such traditional singing as nagauta and gidayu, Tamasaburo and other actors play koto harps live and present a musical drama, including a dance scene involving the entire cast.
Scenery is projected onto a thin curtain, a technique not used in classic kabuki.
"We're making something fresh, in a good way, that satisfies people who come to Kabukiza," Tamasaburo said.
Satisfying anime, kabuki fans
Master of animation Hayao Miyazaki's seven-volume manga "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" has been adapted into a kabuki work starring Onoe Kikunosuke at the Shinbashi Enbujo Theatre in Higashiginza. It is running through Dec. 25.
Melodies from film music composed by Joe Hisaishi are played on such instruments as koto and kokyu, a traditional stringed instrument, and the costumes and hairstyles were created by specialists who engage in kabuki.
"I want to find a meeting point that satisfies both Nausicaa fans and kabuki fans," said Kikunosuke, who plays Nausicaa. "Works that endure for a long time always have universal themes that connect to the present."
1st time in 88 years
"Our show mustn't be buried by 'Nausicaa' and 'Snow White,'" said Matsumoto Koshiro, who plays the leading role in "Komori no Yasusan," based on Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece "City Lights," in the December lineup at the National Theatre in Hanzomon until Dec. 26.
The play is a revival of a show performed only once in the early Showa era, 88 years ago.
The protagonist has a bat tattoo on his face and actually is an impressive supporting character who appears in the classic "Yowa Nasake Ukina no Yokogushi." This character is superimposed on the vagabond played in the film by Chaplin.
Koshiro contacted people close to Chaplin and was able to schedule the play at the optimum time of both the 130th anniversary of Chaplin's birth, and the Dec. 25 anniversary of the comedian's passing.
-- Morishige covers traditional performing arts.
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