Theatre: Kabuki at Sadler's Wells

On a recent trip to London, a friend and I spent a very enjoyable evening at Sadler's Well Theatre watching some Kabuki.

Kabuki is a peculiarly Japanese theatre tradition, where all the parts are played by men. It is an arresting sight, hugely colourful and massively skillful. The story is played out by the many tiny details of posture, costume and music as much as the dialogue. Most of the subtleties were well beyond my grasp, but this did not spoil what was a truly fabulous experience

We were fortunate in having two of the best known Kabuki actors gracing the stage, and tickets very close to the front.

It's quite difficult to explain Kabuki unless you have some knowledge of Japanese traditional arts - being highly stylised, it is a very different experience to anything you'd expect to see in the West. Basically though, you have a small number of actors on stage, as well as the musicians. There isn't much in the way of dialogue, and what there is is not exactly delivered a-la Olivier.

There were two performances on the night: Fuji Musume (The Wisteria Maiden) where the magnificent Ebizo Ichikawa XI played the part of the geisha, followed by Kasane where Ebizo XI as the ronin samurai Yoemon, was joined by Kamejiro Ichikawa II as Kasane, Yoemon's lover.

Translation headphones were available, but I didn't bother - there really was no need. A little knowledge of the story was all that was required to follow the plot.

The skill and energy of the performances was quite exceptional. In fact my friend and I are looking into booking for a performance next year, at the Paris Opera House, where the Ichikawa family will be performing a number of pieces. Should be quite something.

External links:
Synopsis on the Sadler's Wells website