Kabuki
 
 

Kabuki is a traditional Japanese form of theater with its origins in the Edo period. Kabuki, in contrast to the older surviving Japanese art form such as No, was the popular culture of the townspeople and not of the higher social classes.

History
Kabuki's louche beginnings were in the early 1600s, when a woman named Okuni led a troupe of female dancers in performances of kabuki oduri (frolicsome dances) on the banks of Kyoto's Kamo River. The shows were associated with lewdness and prostitution, and the authorities intervened to ban women from taking part and handsome young boys replaced them, but the problem of prostitution did not go away. Tokugawa Shogun banned apperance of women in Kabuki plays. As a result all female roles are palyed by male actors called Onna-gata and the beauty of Onna-gata became one of the most distinctive features in Kabuki performances. Eventually the rules were changed again - today kabuki parts are played by adult men.

Most of all Kabuki plays were written during 17th-18th century, so the language is hard to understand, even Japanese people. Kabuki plays are about historical events, moral conflicts in love relationship and the like. They speak in monotonous voice and are accompanied by traditional Japanese instruments.

The kabuki stage is big, and closer to the Western proscenium style than the platform employed by no. Its most striking feature is hanamichi (flower path), a long catwalk linking the front of the stage with the back of the auditorium; along it, principal characters make important entrances and exits. The stage floor conceals complicated apparatus for the stunts and coups de theatre in which kabuki revels: trap doors through which character leaps or vanish; revolving panels for quick changes of scenery; ropes and pulleys for flying a character across the stage. Music in played live, but the players are usually semi concealed behind wooden slats. The music is more exuberant and noisy then no, but still far from melodic, with much use of drums and crackers to point up spectacular moments.
Kabuki actors serve long apprenticeships, being born or adopted into long-standing acting families, which have dominated the arts since the Edo period. As in no, actors specialize in certain kinds of role, the most specialized of all being the onna-gata, female impersonators, whose exquisite dress, movement and high-pitched voices render them more feminine than any real women ever was. They wear thick white make-up, like geisha; other actors are painted to indicate their character, with red suggesting evil.