Curtains went up for kabuki for the first time in five months at Kabukiza Theatre in the Higashi-Ginza district, Tokyo, on Aug. 1.
The program at the theater this month, which runs until Aug. 26, is called "Hachigatsu Hanagata Kabuki" (August star kabuki). The word "hanagata" means young star actors in the traditional Japanese performing arts community, while monthly programs with a veteran cast is called "o-kabuki" (grand kabuki).
The theater's monthly show is usually split into two sessions, sometimes into three, with each requiring tickets. To reduce the risk of coronavirus infections, however, the theater has introduced a four-session program this month. Each part consists of one kabuki dance or play. The first three parts are all kabuki dances -- "Renjishi" (Parent and child lion dance), "Bo Shibari" (Battle of ideas for sake) and "Yoshinoyama" (Mt. Yoshino), respectively. Part 4 is "Genjidana," a scene from the play "Yowa Nasake Ukina no Yokogushi" (Scarfaced Yosaburo). After each part, which lasts only about an hour, the entire cast and the staff are changed, and the audience seats are disinfected.
"It's like putting on a show at four different theaters," said a staff member of the theater.
This month's performances are also missing one special thing about kabuki: shouts from the audience. At a climactic moment in a play, experienced audience members who know kabuki inside out yell the family name of an actor or other set phrases from the omuko, which is essentially the farthest seats from the stage. The tradition has been banned for the time being due to the virus. One actor lamented this and requested that recordings of the shouts be played because it feels lonely without omuko shouts. But his request was denied because playing recorded shouts may mislead audience members to think it's still OK to call out during performances.
I watched the first two part on Aug. 3, and Part 4 on Aug. 4. To be honest, the auditorium was not crowded at all. I presumed many kabuki fans, many of whom are elderly, avoided coming to see the show even though they may have wanted to.
Nevertheless, I was deeply moved watching kabuki again after such a long time. Other audience members probably felt the same way. For instance, the applause seemed to have lasted longer than usual.
Particularly impressive was "Genjidana." There is a scene toward the end in which former lovers Yosaburo (played by Matsumoto Koshiro) and Otomi (played by Nakamura Kotaro) become reunited and lean on each other. This time, the actors performed a little away from each other, presumably to keep social distance. Still, the production successfully and stylishly showed their yearning for each other. I won't say too much about the performance so as to avoid spoiling it, but I was really impressed with their performance, and thought their acting may go down in history as kata, a set of stylized forms of acting.
By the way, I was supposed to watch Part 3, "Yoshinoyama," on the following day of Aug. 5, but the performance was canceled on the very day as a precautionary measure because one person involved in the show had a high temperature. Part of me thought the theater was being too cautious, but I accepted the decision as proof of the theater's strong determination to prevent infections among audience members. And since that person tested negative for the virus, the performances resumed the following day. So I was also able to watch "Yoshinoyama" on Aug. 10.
-- Morishige covers traditional performing arts.
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