Kabuki fever!

Hideki Noda, Yukio Ninagawa, Koki Mitani... famous leading Japanese dramatists start to deal with kabuki and make unconventional, fantastic kabuki stages these days.

At Parco Theatre in Shibuya, Koki Mitani produced "Ketto! Takadanobaba (Duel in Takadanobaba)" in March with Ichikawa Somegoro, a kabuki actor.

Now at Theatre Cocoon also in Shibuya, Kazuyoshi Kushida produces "Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan (Yotsuya Ghost Story)" with Nakamura Kanzaburo, another kabuki actor.

Kushida is a pioneer of the genre known today as "contemporary kabuki" and Kanzaburo is well up on comtemporary dramas. He asked Hideki Noda a new kabuki drama, and Noda produced "Noda's Togitatsu no Utare (Togitatsu's Revenge)" in 2001.

It seems taking root that a kabuki actor asks for reliable dramatist's cooperation to make a new kabuki stage. Kikunosuke Onoue asked Yukio Ninagawa directly, and that bore fruit in "NINAGAWA Twelfth Night" in 2005.

I like this new wave of contemporary kabuki. It is different from Ichiwaka Ennosuke's Super Kabuki. I think the style these days is more effective to explore the genre's dramatic potential. I don't like the play that only gives the audience instant satisfaction, that only works inside the theater hall. I suppose that it is not so difficult to break the classical kabuki style or make it fun with contemporary direction. Not to modernize kabuki simply, but to make a new one with heart of contemporary drama and manners of kabuki. That's it. That can make a really new kabuki from now.

And here I'd like to say this, the meaning of drama and theatre. It never loses a raison d'e^tre if it could influence even only one of the audience, to change his daily lives in some small way.

Articles from The Japan Times:
*A grand splash - Dramatist updates classic kabuki at Theatre Cocoon
*Dueling kabuki in Shibuya