Kabuki Theater

Kabuki is not the oldest form of Japanese theater but it is the most popular. The word means out of the ordinary or bizarre. It combines music, drama, and dance.  Kabuki grew out of opposition to Noh — they wanted to shock the audience with more lively and timely stories. The first performance was in 1603. Like Noh, however, over time Kabuki became not performing in a new way, but a stylized art to be performed only a certain way.

It started in the early 17th century in Kyoto, where a girl named Izumo No Okuni used a dried river bed as a stage to perform strange and unusual dances for people passing by. Most were mesmerized by her daring and entertaining parodies of Buddhist prayers.

Kabuki uses make-up and facial expressions instead of masks, they also perform about everyday life or history.

It was first only performed by females and became a regular form of entertainment at tea houses. These performances were performed by Geisha’s and became quite risqué as the girls were advertising themselves as available to young men coming to watch. This led to a ban and in 1629 boys began to perform Kabuki instead. This was also banned for similar reasons.

Then it was performed by grown men who required a lot of costuming and make-up to be able to take on the girl parts. More and more restrictions were put on this theater, no weapons were to be used, no violence to be acted out and this once free flowing form performed by 1 woman became a structured 5 act play performed by men often based on the tenants of Confucius.

There are three main types of Kabuki theater, the historical (jidai-mono), the domestic (sewa-mono) and dance pieces (shosagoto)

Jidai-mono These historical plays are set within the context of major events in Japanese history. Strict censorship laws during the Edo period prohibited the representation of contemporary events and particularly prohibited criticising the shogunate or casting it in a bad light, although enforcement varied greatly over the years. Many shows were set in the context of the Genpei War of the 1180s, the Nanboku-cho Wars of the 1330s, or other historical events. Frustrating the censors, many shows used these historical settings as metaphors for contemporary events.

Sewamono This type of theater focuses primarily upon commoners, namely townspeople and peasants. Often referred to as "domestic plays" in English, sewamono generally related to themes of family drama and romance.

Shosagoto

Kabuki started off very free but over time it started following the same structure we find in Noh and Bunraku. The main concept is of jo-ha-kyu this starts with a slow play then speeds up and ends quickly. Most full plays have Five acts and each act is truly a play by itself. The first act starts slowly and its mai purpose is to introduce all of the characters. The next three acts speed up and have major drama and/or tragedy there is often a battle. The final act is short and gives a satisfying conclusion.