Hey, there! I'm Mike Rugnetta. This is Crash Course: Theatre,
and today we're going to be raising the curtain on a form of Japanese theatre
that actually used a curtain. It's Kabuki.
We're also going to look at Bunraku, an uncannily
lifelike form of puppet theatre that gained popularity
at about the same time as Kabuki. Get your hooded narrators
and your twelve best kimonos ready. It's lights up.
Kabuki developed during the Tokugawa Shogunate,
a military government that ruled from 1603
to 1868. After a series of disastrous
civil wars, the government finally achieved peace
and prosperity, while practicing a strict
isolationism that allowed native arts
to flourish. But, all that repression needed
an outlet. Noh just wasn't enough anymore,
especially now that the new middle class
wanted to go to the theatre, too. So, how did Kabuki begin?
Oh, hey! It's Lewd Mime. Welcome back, Lewd Mime.
Haven't seen you since the advent of Liturgical Drama. Around
1603, a female dancer from the Izumo Grand Shrine
named Okuni began to perform
publicly on a makeshift stage in a dry
riverbed in Kyoto. Her programs
got really popular, and eventually Okuni began mixing dance
with little playlets and occasional cross-dressing
to create lengthier shows. Courtesans began
adopting her style and making increasingly elaborate performances
set to the music of the shamisen, a three-stringed
lute-like instrument. These performances included dances,
jokes, and a lot of sexy costumes with scenes set
in bath houses, because, I mean, you know, courtesans.
This style was eventually called the Onna Kabuki,
or Women's Kabuki. An alternate name was
prostitutes singing and dancing. Even though this was
supposedly a theatre for the emergent middle class, and samurai
were supposed to be above this kind of thing,
samurai weren't. Concerned about the corrupting influence,
authorities outlawed women performers
in 1629. But Kabuki, which means "to tilt,"
continued. Now restricted to the Red Light District of Edo,
where it could be regulated. This Red Light
District was called Ukiyo, or "The Floating World,"
and it was pretty much the naughty, pre-1990's Times
Square of its day, except, you know, more tea houses.
Since women could no longer perform, the roles were played by young boys
who also prostitute themselves
to samurai. The shogun hated this and
kept trying to regulate it, so in 1642
men playing women's roles were outlawed. And in
1648, homosexuality was outlawed.
And in 1652, all young male
actors were outlawed. It's almost like theatre
isn't the problem. Anyway, it was at this point
that a men's Kabuki formed. All the actors were grown
dudes and, just to make sure
they wouldn't attract samurai, laws required
them to shave their foreheads
and abstain from making themselves attractive.
Sexy scenes were also vetoed.
Sorry, Lewd Mime. A typical Kabuki program lasted
twelve hours
until 1868, when the government passed
more laws and required that there be an
eight hour maximum.
A performance usually began with a historical drama
called a Jidaimono, which featured battles and
samurai. This was followed by a dance, which was
in turn followed by a "ripped-from-the-headlines" domestic drama, or
Sewamono, and for dessert: a comic dance.
The performances were highly physical, with lots of
stage combat and martial arts. Occasionally,
actors would stop and hold a pose called a
Mie, which signaled a heightened moment in the
narrative. While only women's roles were danced at first,
eventually dance became so important to the form, that in the
1700's, choreographers were added
to Kabuki companies. Now, perhaps you're curious how
exactly Kabuki differs from Noh, then.
Well, Kabuki plays are full of plot, spectacle,
sword fights, mystical creatures, and special effects.
They're less concerned with enlightenment, and more about
just having a good time. As theatre professor Peter Arnott wrote,
"Noh is austere,
Kabuki flamboyant; Noh ritual,
Kabuki spectacle; Noh offers
spiritual consolation, Kabuki physical excitement;
Noh seeks chaste models,
Kabuki delights in the eccentric, the extravagant,
and the willfully perverse; Noh is gentle,
Kabuki cruel; Noh is concerned with the hereafter,
Kabuki, bound by the here and now." Kabuki may have
been fun, wild, cruel, and contemporary, but actors
took it very seriously. Most Kabuki actors
were born into the profession,
training from age six or seven, and not considered mature artists
until forty. While the
plays are extravagant, the acting's often very restrained.
As Chikamatsu Monzaemon, the greatest
and most famous Kabuki playwright, once wrote,
"Since it is moving when all parts of the art
are controlled by restraint, the stronger
and firmer the melody and words are,
the sadder will be the impression created." Actors were
social outcasts, you are perhaps unsurprised
to learn. For the most part, they could only marry into other
actor families and were ordered to live
near the theatres. But acting families
were famous for their unique Kata, or style.
And Kabuki actors were the rockstars of their day,
attracting obsessive fans who lived
for gossip about their lives and rivalries
and who would offer them presents on opening night.
Male actors who played female roles, called Onnagata actors,
were especially popular. A lot of them lived as women,
even off stage, which is very method.
If an Onnagata threw a used towel into the crowd,
it could cause a riot.
In Kabuki, there are a few basic types of roles: the Onnagata;
Tachiyaku, brave hero types; Katakiyaku, mean
villain types; and Koyaku, children's roles.
Unlike Noh actors, Kabuki actors don't wear
masks, but each character type has specific
makeup associated with it. Actors start by
painting their faces with a white base, and then they add red
and black, with blue and brown
if you happened to be playing a demon. Onnagata actors draw on
fake eyebrows, and if they're playing married women,
they blacken their teeth. The costumes are elaborate
and can weigh as much as 50 pounds.
Onnagata playing court ladies wore twelve
kimonos, one after the other. But because actors
were outcasts, and the shogunate had
a lot of laws,
actors could actually be jailed if their costumes were too nice.
The Kabuki stage was somewhat different from the Noh stage.
It was wider, extending the full width of the auditorium,
and at some point, a curtain was added.
It was also built for exciting special effects and quick
scene changes, used elevator traps,
and the stage revolved on a turntable. The biggest difference
was the Hanamichi, or "Flower Way," a runway
that ran from the back of the theater right
up to the stage and allowed the actors to walk
through the audience.
This was the 18th Century equivalent of 3D,
and fans loved it so much that some theaters
added a second Hanamichi. Kabuki was a literary
form, though the script was usually secondary
to the acting, and actors were encouraged to
improvise. Unlike Noh, most early Kabuki plays were set
in the present, and a lot of them took place in the Ukiyo,
"the floating world of smut," the same place you would go
to see these plays. A narrator was present onstage,
and sometimes the actors would speak their own dialogue,
but often the narrator would do it.
We're going to look at one of these plays, but first we're going to look at Bunraku,
the puppet theatre, which developed around
the same time as Kabuki. The two forms often
influenced each other. Initially, these puppets were just heads.
No, yeah, but, like, with eyes and
hair and skin and stuff.
Eventually, the heads grew hands and feet, and then, someone was like,
"Let's go nuts, and give them bodies."
The more sophisticated puppets also have moving eyes and eyebrows,
and in action, Bunraku is some uncanny
valley stuff. Ugh!
God!
Stop staring at me! Puppet theatre stages were big,
thirty-six feet by twenty-three feet
and also pretty innovative.
Like Kabuki theatres, they had elevator traps to move props and scenery on
and off stage. As in Kabuki, an announcer hooded
in black told the story. Three puppeteers manipulated
each puppet. By the 1730's, the puppets were about
four feet tall. One puppeteer controlled the head
and the right arm, one the left arm, and one the feet.
If you were a puppeteer, you had to
spend ten years doing the feet
and then ten on the hand
before they'd even let you touch the head.
In case you hadn't picked up on the trend, Japanese theatre
doesn't mess around. The most famous of the Bunraku
playwrights was
Chikamatsu Monzaemon, who you may remember
was also the most popular Kabuki playwright.
He's often called the "Japanese Shakespeare," but did
Shakespeare master the puppet arts?
He did not. Take that, Billiam.
Chikamatsu liked to pull sensational plots from the newspapers
and then dramatize them, especially love suicide plays.
Basically these do what they say on the tin:
it's a whole genre of plays about forbidden love that end
in death. They were eventually banned as
"too sensational" and too likely to inspire copycat suicides.
The following 1703 play is a domestic
tragedy based on an actual event:
the double suicide of Tokubei, a dealer in soy sauce,
and Ohatsu, a courtesan. Now, maybe you're thinking
that the death of a soy sauce salesman doesn't sound that
tragic, but let's remember that the audience was full
of soy guys, and this really happened.
Help us out, Thought Bubble. Tokubei loves Ohatsu, but he's being
pressured to marry the boss' daughter, and his mom
has accepted the dowry. "It's a miracle
I'm still alive.
If they make my story into a three-act play,
I'm sure the audience will weep," he says.
Nice, Tokubei. So, Tokubei manages to get
the dowry money back, but because he's not the smartest,
he lends it to his friend Kuheiji. And when he's like,
"Kuheiji, I need that money back!" Kuheiji's all,
"What money? You forged that IOU, and also
I think you stole my wallet."
Tokubei is like, "Well now I have to marry the boss' daughter for real,
but also I'm dishonored, and I'll never be able
to see Ohatsu again. Guess my only choice is to kill myself."
And Ohatsu is like, "Same."
Oh, and by the way, this is a conversation they have
just with their feet, while Tokubei is hiding under Ohatsu's skirt.
Tokubei spends the night under the porch of Ohatsu's
brothel. Just before morning, the couple put on death
clothes, go to the Sonezaki Shrine, where they
listen to late-night revelers in the tea house
across the river, and sing a song about love suicide.
Again, subtle.
They have a kind of marriage ceremony,
and tie themselves to a tree. Tokubei slits
Ohatsu's throat
and then his own. The narrator tells us that their story whispers
through the Sonezaki wood and today, high and low
alike gather to pray for these two lovers who,
beyond a doubt, will in the future
attain Buddhahood. They have become models of true love.
Thank you, Thought Bubble!
Have they, though? Buddhahood aside,
you can see how different this feels from Noh.
It's swift, it's contemporary, it's full of plot.
It's far more emotional than philosophical, and there's a lot to cry about.
The excitement of these plays may explain why Kabuki
is still being performed today. Bunraku, too.
There's hope for you yet! Next time, we're going to investigate
another form of Eastern dance drama:
the Southeast Asian, party-all-night, kill the demon
form called Kathakali. But until then,
curtain! And, maybe a haircut.
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