Kanadehon Chushingura



it was my first time ever going to a kabuki performance so i didnt really know what to expect. i remember studying a little about the history and such of kabuki in one or several of my classes back in my university days but we never really went much into detail.

one of my teacher buddies managed to snag some student price tickets (1,300yen) for this show a few months ago and insisted that i attend along with some other kiddies so i was like, 'sure why not...' not really knowing what i was getting myself into. the full price for the seats we got was 13,000yen by the way haha. anyway imagine 5 hours of action - and when i say action i mean sitting in a hot, cramped theatre full of older folks listening to gobbledygook lol. not to say it was the most horrible experience ever - it's just that... it would have been better if it was more comfortable that's all. we had three intermissions when we should have had like... five. the air was so freaking bad it's amazing i didnt throw up right there at my seat (i threw up when i got home, though @_@). i managed to meditate and focus on breathing normally and that somehow saved me on the train ride home. i had the worst headache ever, though. it started 10 minutes into the performance. i took an advil (luckily i wore the bag that had medicine in it) during the first intermission which helped a lot, but by the end of the whole show it was back in its entirety. anyway, when i got home i went straight into throwing up, brushed my teeth, threw away the contacts and settled into bed. i made plans to go to a live performance at House of Crazy later that night, but the thought of getting on a train or even walking made me feel sick lol. i dont know what time i was out, but the show ended around 340pm, and im going to say it took like an hour and a half to get back to my apt. i woke up again at 800am this morning and was like ooooooooooooohMyGoodness.... i stood up and i was like, 'man still got headache...' i took some bayer and knew i had to eat something, so i ate an apple... it's 200pm-ish now but i dont feel particularly hungry... and speaking of food i totally bypassed dinner last night lol. im going to a bday party in a few hours so i'll get in my fooding then.

yeah so about the play itself!

i think what i enjoyed most was the set and music + singing.

the stage had this awesome rotating circular thing so when it spun, the next scene was like... totally there. like theres this one part where the dudes are all outside and then the walk inside and the stage does its spinning transformation thing. the stage ninjas also aided in transformations. like there was this part where this one stage ninja had this huge rolled straw mat/ carpet thing and in one big toss he throws it from one side of the stage, and it manages to reach alllll the way to the other side all beautifully and stuff. it was pretty pro. everyone in the audience was like, "oooooooooo!!" /applause lol. it was but you got to hand it to him though because it really was pretty slick.

the music crew made things awesome. it was all male, as were the actors of course, and they were simply magical. lots of vocal + shamisen action. the drums were cool too. oh not to mention the wooden block beater people. imagine that stereotypical "yoHhhHhhhhHH~~~! /clack! /clack! /clackClackClack... thing kabuki has - cause that's totally what i experienced haha. i didnt get a picture of the black, red and green curtain thing because i was way too sick by then to even think of taking pictures lol.

and when i saw the actors who portrayed female characters i couldnt stop thinking of Alto from Macross Frontier:
leave it to anime for warping my perception of japanese culture! lol.