It seems like everywhere I look I see vestiges of Japan's samurai heritage.
Modern day warriors going into battle
day after day.
But the real test, they tell me, is yet to come.
Winter.
The backside of Japan gets a huge amount of rain.
When the temperature drops, it turns to snow.
Enough to break the spirit of the most hardened samurai.
And I hate the cold.
Two weeks is one thing.
Five months is something else again.
It must get awfully boring spending all that time just moving around a bunch of snow.
So in nearby Kuromori hamlet,
they’ve come up with an unusual winter hobby:
Kabuki theatre.
For the last 230 years they’ve put on a performance every February.
Outdoors.
In the snow.
It’s a huge undertaking for a hamlet of only 400 families.
They’re far too small to have their own theatre,
so each year they rebuild the local Shinto shrine.
The Styrofoam is for the spectators,
who will be sitting on the ground.
It’s well below freezing out,
and the play is seven hours long.
They’d better hurry –
it opens in just two days.
There are costumes to be sewn, and hair.
Some of it held together with little more than glue and string.
The play is set in the 17th century
and since no one wants to shave their heads,
everyone wears a wig.
Opening day.
At least it’s warm out – 36 degrees (F).
Last year’s performance wasn’t quite so lucky...
they got six inches of snow.
Why do they go through all this effort?
Back in the 18th century, they tell me,
the village elders decided that their children were getting out of hand.
So they introduced kabuki theatre
to teach them to behave with proper etiquette.
Good manners begin, apparently, with a thick coat of pink paint
that gets slathered on almost everywhere.
Meanwhile – the audience is gathering outside.
They seem to be mostly older folk,
or very young.
And they’ll do almost anything to stay warm.
But despite the freezing temperatures,
they still take off their shoes.
They’re not just locals, coming to see their friends and family.
Camera crews are here from all over Japan.
This year the Kuromori Kabuki is hoping to become a National Intangible Cultural Asset.
A great honor
and a significant source of funding from the government.
Until now the play has largely been subsidized by volunteer contributions.
A few things you should know before the play begins.
Only men act in Kabuki theatre.
They play the part of women, who were banned some 300 years ago.
And Kabuki is nothing if not traditional.
Like Shakespeare, Kabuki roles are often stereotypes:
The Hero,
his Evil Enemy,
the Clowning Servant,
and the Damsel in Distress.
Though in this case she only lives until the end of act 1.
Kabuki speech is melodic – to the eastern ear.
The audience already knows the plot
which is important,
because some kabuki plays are written in an ancient form a Japanese
that few people nowadays would understand.
The whole point is to see great acting.
Everything in Kabuki is stylized – even laughter.
And most importantly...
Kabuki plots move rather slowly,
and they don't have to make sense.
The play begins.
A woman rejects her suitor
who flies into a rage and kills her.
Young Yasunosuke – our hero – vows revenge.
He kills the suitor, then flees town.
And that’s the end of act 1 – three hours long.
Kabuki, like so many Japanese activities,
is really about discipline.
You have to learn to dance gracefully,
even when you’re freezing cold
or sit absolutely rigid for an hour or more,
then immediately jump up and do a swordfight.
The only thing more patient than the actors
is the audience
because by now it’s really starting to snow.
They don’t seem to mind.
Our grown-up hero, Yasunosuke,
now a drunkard,
hears that his friend is in trouble.
He rushes off, kabuki-style, to help.
But arrives too late.
In a carefully choreographed rage,
he kills 19 bad guys.
That ends the play.
The moral – be loyal to your friends.
Fight fair.
And if you’re in Kuromori – dress warm.