Not a day passes, or so it seems, that the news is not
reporting on some new instance of
‘kabuki theatre.’ Of course
they are talking about politics, particularly as staged in Washington D.C. The fact that these little dramas more
resemble Roman Farce or even Greek Tragedy, than Japanese Kabuki, seems to be
lost on both reporters and readers alike.
Indeed, when the James Earl Jones character in the Francis Ford Coppola
film, Garden Of Stones, described the US
Army’s Old Guard as “… the Army’s Kabuki Theatre on the Potomac” he was much
closer to the truth of it.
Started around the year 1603 in a dry Kyoto river bed by the
itinerant dancer Okuni, Kabuki has grown, adapted, changed, and generally
rolled with the times, surviving the Tokugawa Shoguns, the popularity of the
puppet theatre, the opening of Japan to the West, World War II, TV and video
games.
UH 1981 Production of Kanjincho - The Subscription List
Unlike most classical theatre, Kabuki has enjoyed a
continuous and consistent performance tradition that has endured into the 21st
century and shows no signs of diminishing.
The very best book about Kabuki is Earl Ernst’s seminal
work, The Kabuki Theatre. Written in 1956 it remains unsurpassed
in its scope, depth and understanding of this most sophisticated art form. Indeed, those who are interested in Kabuki
will not only have this book on their shelf, but will have actually read it,
often more than once.
David Furumoto as Benkei
In 1974, when the University of Hawai’i undertook to
republish the book Ernst, who was a professor at the UH, was asked to write a
new introduction. He was
challenged that, certainly in the 20 years since the book’s first release,
things had changed. Yes, Ernst
agreed, many things in Japan had changed, and even Kabuki, which always rode
the waves of time and fashion, had made certain accommodations, the biggest of
which was the institution and support of a new actor-training program at the
National Theatre.
And yet …
Even with a beautiful new theatre built by the government,
weekly-televised performances of classic plays, and new blood from outside the
traditional Kabuki families, the essence of Kabuki had not changed.
I quote Ernst in full:
“In October 1972 one could step out
of the din and pollution of Tokyo into the Kabuki-za to see Kichiemon’s
grandson play Togashi in The Subscription List, a role in which his grandfather
excelled. He’s not yet as good as
his grandfather was, but he will be. [And he was.] The set was precisely the same as it’s always been and so
was the music. The audience was
perhaps a little more restrained then the one grandfather played to, but they
came and went at will, they ate, and some seemed to have little notion of what
was going on theatrically, though whatever it was, it was estimable, and there
were those, perhaps a majority, who shed tears when Yoshitsune forgives Benkei
for having struck him. As long as
audiences weep at that moment of the play, a moment so purely Japanese that it
is emotionally inaccessible to most foreigners, traditional Japanese
sensibility will be alive and the Kabuki will nourish it.” -- The
Kabuki Theatre 1973 Preface.
Russell Omori as Togashi
If Dr. Ernst were asked to write a new introduction for a 21st
century edition, I doubt he would change much, if anything, from this intro,
except, perhaps, for the idea that the emotions raised by the scene of
Yoshitsune forgiving Benkei are ‘inaccessible to most foreigners.” In our post-modern global society I
think there are many non-Japanese who would also weep at that scene. Yes, the moment is uniquely Japanese,
and yet not so inaccessible as it once was, and that’s a good thing.
Penny Bergman as General Yoshitsune disguised as a porter
Koken or Stage Assistant in the 1981 UH production of Kanjincho
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