Naritaya!

I might have found a new obsession... As if I didn't have enough of them already. *g* Ok, it probably will pass when I return to Finland, so it won't have time to really get me. I hope.

I'm talking about kabuki.

The kabuki experience yesterday was interesting. We were sitting up on the last rows of Kabuki-za (that's where you get with the 800y ticket), and I used Maru-san's wife's small binoculars to see the actors more clearly on the stage. Listening the english commentary with one ear and the japanese play with the other, I managed actually to follow the play quite well. There was love, deceit, fighting and fancy dresses, everything you might want from a play - quite like in bollywood movies. *g* And of course good-looking young men. Except that some of them were dressed as girls.

As in nô, all roles in kabuki are acted by men. Trust me, it's hard to believe even when you look at their pictures from close (and not just through binoculars from the last rows of a theatre). They are oh so feminine and graceful in a way that would be completely impossible for someone like me - usually when people talk about my "femininity" they do it with sarcastic undertones (which, now that I think of it, aren't that "under"tones either... wonder why?). And what I just got to know through some googling and wikipedia action and find really hard to believe, is that the most famous onnagata (player who specializes in female roles) of the moment, Bandô Tamasaburô V of whom I have a picture right next to me, is 58 years old. I'm wondering whether he'd give any lessons in feminine behaviour...

Then there is Ichikawa Ebizô XI. *sigh* He wasn't in the play we went to see yesterday (and neither was Tamasaburô, for that matter), but I happened to grab a flier with a partially undressed handsome monk (that this particular flier caugh my eye shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone by now...), which I didn't really read until a few moments ago. First of all, the play is based on Izumi Kyôka's Kôyahijiri - so the setting is my all time favourite mountain. This of course means that he IS playing a monk. So, I decided to look up the name from wikipedia, and what do I find...

Among other things he's playing Musashi in the NHK drama version of 2002-2003 - and I happen to know someone who bought this drama last christmas... I'm so going to watch it when I get back to Finland. *g*

He's also THE young kabuki actor, a superstar who has gotten the japanese youth to take some interest in kabuki, and I'm totally ready to join to his large fan base. Yes, sad, I know. But hey, if you need to be obsessed about something it's always better to go for something original, like bollywood or kabuki actors. And this fandom thing is like chickenpox - if you get it as a kid it's quite harmless and will disappear by itself, but if you catch it later it can prove fatal...

Now I just need to get my kabuki knowledge to the level where I can start the name-calling, kakegoe, during the shows. It takes you by surprise first time you hear it, people shouting some name at apparently random times. The ability to pull this off distinguishes the real connoisseurs from the amateurs. The real kabuki fans are apparently found on the cheaper seats from the back, quite near where we were seated. They show their appreciation for actors by calling their guild names, yagô, in the right moment when the actor stops for a short moment to pose - and they have to know the plays and the actor's rhytm by heart to get the right timing for their call. And of course they have to know the yagô in the first place. So, when I'll be sitting there with the old men (as with all traditional culture, old men are those keeping the things running) and shouting "Naritaya!" with immaculate timing (I think throwing plush toys on the stage at the same time would be frowned upon, but I'll have to check that) - that's when you should give up and call the men in white coats to lock me away.