Backstage at Kabuki: The Luckiest Americans in Japan

Yup, that's the Ancient Mariner and me with Kataoka Takataro, backstage at Tokyo's Shimbashi Enbujo Theatre. We had an unforgettable afternoon watching Kabuki from fabulous fifth row seats with our friends, Hiroko-san and Otsuka-san. Their friend Takataro is starring in the first of the three plays on the afternoon program this month (plus two of the three evening plays) so they made arrangements for us to visit his dressing room after watching him perform in the two-act historical drama Yoritomo no Shi (Yoritomo's Death).

The Ancient Mariner might have been the only member of our quartet who wasn't a little giddy with nervousness when Takataro's congenial young assistant escorted us out the front door of the theater to the stage entrance where we traded our shoes for slippers before padding down a narrow corridor skirting the stage. I snuck a sideways peek at the stage but resisted the impulse to dance across it out of respect for our hosts.  Go, me.

Entering the dressing room we stepped up onto a tatami mat. (Writing this, I find myself wondering if we were supposed to doff the slippers at that juncture. Did everyone else?  Drat. I was so preoccupied with expanding my Kabuki knowledge last night that I forgot to brush up on tatami etiquette.)

Takataro made us feel genuinely welcome. His deep voice and general masculine aura surprised me since he specializes in female roles (onnagata). He invited us to sit beside him on the mat and mentioned that he had wanted to be a Top Gun jet pilot when he was a little boy. He has a name badge featuring the crossed flags of Japan and the United States.

Takataro in his dressing room

We returned to our seats just in time to see the second play, a one-act historical drama extracted from a longer play originally written for the Bunraku puppet theater. This play was first performed in 1730 so it was about as easy to follow as an unannotated Shakespeare play, although the Ancient Mariner and I had a very helpful lady whispering carefully timed insights into our ears thanks to the complimentary English Language Guides Takataro's assistant provided to us when we arrived at the theater. How nice was that? We had every intention of renting headsets, of course, but were truly humbled by Takataro's hospitality as well as the Otsukas'. How can we begin to return these extravagant favors? What's a gaijin to do?

The last performance of the day was incredible, and not just because we had already visited Takataro's dressing room. Renjishi is a dance number based on an old Chinese legend depicting a parent lion teaching its cub survival skills by pushing it off a cliff. Takataro's father, Kataoka Nizaemon (67), was the father lion and Takataro's son, Kataoka Sennosuke (11), was the lion cub. That old chestnut "not a dry eye in the house" sums up the audience's reaction to this historical, exuberant, athletic performance by Nizaemon XV and his young grandson. According to Otsuka-san, it was Sennosuke's idea to perform with his grandfather and he willing gave up a sixth grade class trip to spend the month of June metaphorically falling off a cliff.

Surely he will never forget performing with his grandfather. I can't imagine anyone in that audience today will soon forget the experience either. I know I won't.

Spitting Images and Other Distractions: Kyogen in Kamakura

Yes, there are tons of pictures from the 10th Annual Tokyo Quilt Festival in the offing but not until I catch you up on Ikebana and JAW. The third week of January was as hectic as the third week of every other month I've spent in Japan. Between cooking and cleaning for the JAW ladies and - horror of horrors - having to brew my own coffee, clean the litter box, and haul out the trash while the Ancient Mariner pondered the room service menu somewhere in Washington, DC, uploading pictures fell by the wayside.

The Ikebana crowd and their families assembled in Kamakura for a Kyogen performance last Saturday. Kyogen is an ancient form of Japanese comedy that developed alongside Noh. I spent hours researching Kyogen when I was preparing the invitation for the American members but I'll spare you the lecture. If you want to know more, go here.

The actor on the left is a third-generation Kyogen actor frequently seen on television in this part of the world. When he demonstrated the characteristic exaggerated laughter and sorrow for us, he was the spitting image of my favorite character in the Full Metal Alchemist anime series. Matt and I watched about 834 episodes of Full Metal Alchemist in 2006 and 2007 and most of the Japanese I have mastered is compliments of following the bouncing ball in the theme songs (plural, as new songs were introduced every twenty episodes or so).

The actor on the right is Czech. He came to Japan to study Kyogen with the Japanese actor's father. This young man is the spitting image of Professor Miller who taught Eastern European History at the University of West Florida in the mid-1990s.



Front Row:  Xan at far left, Czech Ambassador at far right


Distracted by memories of Full Metal Alchemist, Professor Miller, and a certain college freshman, I spent more time watching the audience than the performance. My little friend Xan was quite fetching in her flowered purple kimono and the Czech ambassador, present to support her young countryman, was a breath of fresh air. The ambassador arrived sans entourage, went unrecognized, and stood patiently in line behind a gaggle of Japanese ladies to collect her name badge. This is an effective form of diplomacy the U.S. State Department would be wise emulating. The phrase 'how to make friends and influence people' comes to mind.

Watanabe-san, standing here, greeted me with the disturbing news that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She is scheduled for surgery next week. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. These days I am combing the internet for Christmas stocking knitting patterns to help distract her because she told me last month she would like to try making a stocking like the ones my mother knit for my husband and children. Remind me to show you the sewing box she delivered to my doorstep on Christmas Eve.

A happier distraction was running into Nobuko-san, the woman sitting on the far right side of the picture. We spent many happy hours with Nobuko and her husband the last time we lived in Japan, learning country line dancing and watching his band perform in their Hayama restaurant. Nobuko told me that her father, the owner of three department stores, passed away shortly after the Ancient Mariner and I left Japan and the Kyogen performance marked her first reappearance at Ikebana since his death. Her father's death coupled with the economic downturn meant selling the restaurant, shutting down half of the Yokosuka store, and Nobuko taking a job with an uncle. But she still dances as often as she can and I've promised to brush off my dancing shoes for her line dancing party in February.

The nice thing about line dancing is that it doesn't require a partner. Good thing, too, since the Ancient Mariner will be here and gone again by the time that party rolls around.

Chinese Theater Comes to Ikebana

Ikebana meets on the third Thursday of the month except in January when the most special program of the year is held on a Saturday, making it easier for us to bring our children, spouses, and friends. My family members were otherwise occupied this morning, so I contented myself with escorting the guests of other Ikebana members from the base to the Daibutsu priest's residence in Kamakura.

Today's program was a presentation on a form of Chinese theater called Kunqu Opera (which appears in a different color here because I've provided a link for my sister-in-law Sandy and our mutual friend Ann who are the only people I know who might want to know more about this art form than I am prepared to share).

Kunqu has been around for 600 years but had nearly disappeared by the early twentieth century and barely survived the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s when there were deliberate attempts to suppress it.

Today there are seven professional Kunqu troupes performing in Mainland China and Taipei. It was listed as one of the "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO in 2001. (Maybe I should try to get a job with UNESCO. I wonder how much they pay people to come up with fancy titles like that one.)

This was all explained to us in Japanese by the actor Lu (pronounced 'Lee') Hairong (33) and then translated into English by a young Australian who had to wrestle that microphone out of his hands to do her job.


Lu entered the Shanghai Academy of Performing Arts, a boarding school, at the age of 10. Students there are selected to learn and perform one of the five Kunqu roles when they are 11 years old or are sent home to (presumably) live out their days working in the rice paddies. Lu spent the next seven years, until he was 18, training for martial arts roles. He was allowed to visit his family only once a week during all those years. When he was 26, he moved to Japan where he currently attends Keio University.


We were then treated to a PowerPoint presentation about the five basic Kunqu roles and variations thereof. I will spare you the details since (a) the balding Russian lady sitting between me and the screen ruined most of my shots, and (b) my attention started wandering about 10 seconds after the overhead lights were dimmed.

The lady sitting in front of me, for instance, was wearing an interesting sweater, or perhaps it was a detachable belt . . .

. . . and the lady on her right had a net thing on her head, the likes of which I haven't seen since the mid-60s when my mother sometimes splurged on custom-designed Easter bonnets . . .

. . . and then there was the Chinese mask dangling from the rafter over my head.

"Perhaps if I attach a little camera to my makeup mirror and project a live image of myself on the screen I can recapture the attention of that gaijin in the third row," schemed Lu. We watched him apply his makeup. This normally takes 90 minutes. We breathed a collective sigh of relief when Lu said he was going to do a quick version for today's performance. (Sighs of relief are apparently universal as they sound the same in Japanese and English.)

His fellow actor, Kong Fanqi (29), helped Lu into his costume. That polka dot ball off to the side of Kong's head signifies he is playing the role of a hero (assuming the translator understood Lu correctly and assuming I heard the translator correctly, so you might not want to quote me on this one).

Lu's outfit was pretty cool and featured lots of cranes in flight. Kong's outfit was all about butterflies. I couldn't help wondering if anyone helped poor Kong get dressed.

Oh, look! Lu's playing a hero, too!

They performed a farce for us, in which two best friends mistake each other for mortal enemies in the dark and narrowly miss killing each other. It was really quite funny, and the American children in the audience were squealing in delight which made all the adults break out in laughter.

The ladies mobbed the stage at the end of the performance. The blonde kneeling in front of Kong is the Russian ambassador's wife.

Next month we're going to learn a Japanese handicraft technique called kimekome so we can make something called a goten-mari ball. I am definitely going to have to drag a guest or two along to that one. Probably not Mimi.