Come With Us To Kabuki

Episode 154: Come With Us To Kabuki If you’re going to teach a Theatre History Unit, one of the areas you may include is Japanese Theatre: Kabuki, Noh or Bunraku. Theatrefolk co-owners Lindsay and Craig got a chance to see a Kabuki performance at the Kabukiza Theatre in Tokyo and share their fascinating experience with this art form on the podcast. Show Notes Kabuki Official Website Shakespeare In An Hour Episode Transcript Welcome to TFP – The Theatrefolk Podcast – the place to be for Drama teachers, Drama students, and theatre educators everywhere. I’m Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk. Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for listening! This is Episode 154 – one, five, four; one fifty-four; one hundred and fifty-four – all of the above. You can find any links to this episode in the show notes which are at theatrefolk.com/episode154. Today, we’re staying in-house. We have a conversation between myself – hello – and my Theatrefolk partner in crime, Craig Mason. Last year, we had the opportunity to travel to Japan and we knew that one of the things we wanted to do was go to the theatre. I just think it’s so fascinating to experience not only theatre in another country but the theatre of another country, especially if it’s in a language you don’t understand. I saw King Lear in Czech in Prague. I was there about ten, fifteen years ago. So, it’s Kral Lear in Czech and you really realize how many times the word “king” is said in the play when that is the only word you know and that’s something that you might miss when you see it in English. And seeing a play in another language is a great opportunity to see how a company visually tells their story – visualizes the theme alongside of the verbal, alongside of the words. A really great adjudicator who I had the opportunity to learn from, Ron Cameron-Lewis, he gave us great percentages that I use all the time in my own adjudications and that is that, when an audience takes in something, it is 60 percent visual, 30 percent oral, and 10 percent text. So, you know, if you’re not thinking about that 60 percent of the visual, you’re missing out on getting some of your audience and that’s a really great percentage too if you’re presenting to people who aren’t speaking your language. Oh, I know one other thing I was going to say. We’re going to Iceland very shortly and, as I was looking up the theatre that we could possibly go and see, one of the options is going to see Mama Mia in Icelandic which I am fascinated. I am totally, totally fascinated. Here’s a story that I know, music that I know very well, but in a completely foreign language to me. What will that experience be like? I am sure that I will tell you down the road. Okay, back to Kabuki. Here’s Craig and myself – me and Craig, Craig and I. We’re in Japan, Tokyo – to be more specific, in the Ginza district of Tokyo, reflecting on our very first time at a Kabuki show. Let’s get to it. LINDSAY: Hello, Craig. CRAIG: Hello, Lindsay. LINDSAY: So, when I usually start each podcast, I always say, “So, where are you in the world?” to sort of introduce yourself and I think this counts as the farthest away a podcast has been from, don’t you think? CRAIG: Certainly for us. LINDSAY: Certainly for us. Well, it’s even better because we’re actually in the place.