Shout, Laugh, Stay Silent

The first time I set foot in a Kabuki theater, I had no idea what to expect. It was at the old Kabuki-za in Ginza, before its reconstruction — a building that was already startling and colorful, more striking than any dinner theater you'd find in France.

More opera than theater, really. In fact, I'd happily file Kabuki under opera rather than drama: there's as much singing and dancing as there is speaking. The costumes match the extravagance of the building's façade — garish and grandiloquent, in stark contrast to the white-painted faces that mask or exaggerate the actors' expressions.

A performance traditionally runs anywhere from three and a half to five hours; we only stayed for part of it before slipping out partway through — which in France would be seen as deeply rude, but is entirely normal at a Kabuki show. The audience, scattered thinly through the hall, kept shouting whenever a particular character made an entrance, as if they were part of the performance themselves. It's called kakegoe: at the exact moment an actor strikes a defining pose, someone in the audience shouts his yagō, the name of the theatrical house he belongs to — "Naritaya!" for a descendant of the Ichikawa lineage, for instance — a tradition as old as Kabuki itself. Other spectators seemed to have dozed off entirely, only stirring to applaud or voice their enthusiasm depending on how the moment struck them.

A theater enthusiast and occasional actor myself, I'll admit I was pretty thrown — by the setting as much as by the show itself.

A History More Nuanced Than It Looks

I understood later that there was a real history behind this diversity of Japanese theatrical forms, each tied to a specific era and a specific audience — even if the explanation turns out to be a bit more subtle than what I'd imagined in the moment.

Kabuki was born at the very start of the Edo period, around 1603, when a shrine dancer named Izumo no Okuni began giving unconventional performances on the dry riverbed of the Kamo River in Kyoto. Women originally played every role — until the shogunate banned female Kabuki in 1629, officially for offending public morals (the practice was closely tied to prostitution). Young men took over, only to be banned themselves for the same reasons in 1652 — which is why, to this day, every role, including female ones (played by onnagata, actors who specialize in them), is performed by men.

Kabuki is, historically, a people's art: born in the pleasure districts, carried by the merchant class — and long looked down on by the samurai elite, who preferred Nō, the official art of power. Two forms separated by more than two centuries, shaped by two completely opposite audiences.

Other forms, like Rakugo, are much more accessible, even without a strong grasp of Japanese (though you'll need solid fluency to catch all its subtleties). Kabuki, on the other hand, can remain incomprehensible even to Japanese audiences at times, thanks to turns of phrase dating back to the feudal era (a bit like following Moliere in the vernacular French of his day) — some theaters, including the Kabuki-za, actually offer audio guides with commentary in modern Japanese, and sometimes English, for exactly this reason.

Rakugo, the Art of Minimalism

Rakugo, mentioned above, is a minimalist form much closer to Western theater as we know it, and it can also feel a bit like stand-up comedy. A single storyteller, seated in seiza on a small platform, describes a scene from the past or the present with tremendous expression, playing several characters single-handedly by simply switching voice and facial expression. It's genuinely impressive to watch, and I'd strongly recommend it. The performances are also much shorter, and often very funny.

If the subject intrigues you, Le Rakugo, à la vie, à la mort (original title: Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū) is a manga following a former convict who becomes the apprentice of a Rakugo master — a moving, well-researched way into this world, also available in English as Descending Stories, or in its French edition. Its French translator, Cyril Coppini, actually went on to become a professional rakugoka himself — probably the best proof that this art, however niche it might seem, knows how to open up to anyone who genuinely takes an interest.

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Nō, the Exact Opposite

There are still plenty of other forms of Japanese theater. Nō (能) is, in almost every way, the exact opposite of Kabuki. Its distant roots trace back to sangaku, a performing art imported from China in the 8th century and then thoroughly reshaped in Japan. Nō took the form we know today in the 14th century with Kan'ami and his son Zeami, under the protection of shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. Closely tied to the samurai class, it was later adopted as official ceremonial art by the Tokugawa shogunate. Masks, hypnotic slowness, minimal gesture: everything about Nō sits at the opposite end of Kabuki's flash.

Some people joke that it's the most boring thing in existence, an absolute cure for insomnia — and it's true that between the peculiar intonation of the voices, the frozen masks and the slow, deliberate movement, it can be risky if you're deep in jet lag.

But more seriously: if you're passing through Kyoto, I'd recommend catching a traditional performance given by geisha or maiko — kyōmai in particular, a Kyoto-specific dance tradition partly influenced by Nō. You'll be sitting on (very) small cushions, sometimes with matcha and a traditional sweet to go with the show, and you'll be instantly dropped into a Japan and a thousand-year-old past. Even if you don't follow a word of it, just let yourself be carried by the hushed, intimate atmosphere of the room.

And the Rest

Other, lesser-known forms of theater exist, less well-known or less popular abroad:

• Bunraku (文楽): puppet theater from Osaka — nearly life-size puppets, generally manipulated in full view by three puppeteers (the ningyōzukai) dressed in black. Not kuroko, strictly speaking — that term is reserved for Kabuki's stagehands — but the same silent convention: black signals to the audience not to see them. A chanter (tayū) voices every character, accompanied on the shamisen
• Kyōgen (狂言): the comic interludes traditionally performed between two Nō plays — in more direct, lively language than Nō's poetry (though its own traditional Japanese is, itself, still a step removed from everyday modern speech), with a much lighter, more physical sense of humor: servants outwitting their masters, absurd everyday situations. Not far in spirit from Marivaux's plays and their comic games between servants and masters
• Takarazuka (宝塚歌劇団): an all-female troupe founded in 1913, where actresses play both male and female roles in colorful Broadway-style musical revues. Its all-female cast made it, from the very start, a striking mirror image of Kabuki's all-male tradition — a mirror image almost too neat to be a coincidence. Today, the troupe drives a fandom phenomenon in Japan nearly on par with K-pop

Each one, in its own way, captures a different facet of Japan — from flamboyant Kabuki, to understated Rakugo, to hypnotic Nō.

If You're Tempted...

The Kabuki-za in Ginza sells single-act tickets (makumi), far cheaper than a seat for the full performance — a good way to try it out without committing several hours. For Rakugo, Shinjuku Suehirotei, a stone's throw from Kabukicho, is one of Tokyo's last four historic yose halls — its wooden building, the only survivor of its kind left in the capital, is worth the visit on its own. Nō is performed notably at the National Nō Theatre in Tokyo, and Bunraku at the National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka, its city of origin.