Kabuki, hydrangea, and all things green

Will the wicked woodsman chop down the giant cherry blossom tree? Not if the spirit of the tree can reveal to him the beauty and importance of the cherry blossom. Kabuki theater. On Friday night the spirits were with us and we managed to see the final performance of the season at the Kabuki Theater here in Kyoto. An absolutely fascinating experience that seduced us into something like genuine enthusiasm. But who knew? The theater itself seated maybe four hundred people and we had chosen tickets up in the balcony. When the lights went out and the curtain went up we were in total darkness and an elaborately costumed woman was alone on the stage. Of course, there are no women in Kabuki, not for centuries. So, we were seeing the most famous Kabuki interpreter of female roles--Bando Tamasoburo (a rock star in Japan). With a voice and drum accompaniment, (s)he moved very slowly through a sequence of slow (did I say slow?) movements which, in effect, created one full turn of her body. Along the way her brightly colored robe slipped off her shoulders onto the floor revealing another brightly colored robe beneath. This pantomime took fifteen minutes and then the curtain was lowered to thunderous applause. Terry and I looked at one another utterly clueless (truth is--Bill said, "is the paint dry yet?"). Was this Kabuki? An intermission after just 15 minutes? And then it really got weird. Virtually everyone in the house took out bento boxes or something similar and began to eat while sitting in their seats. Everybody. Big boxes of elaborate Japanese dinners. An indoor picnic. A full 25 minutes later the next act started. We were more than clueless at this point.

And that's when the woodsman made his appearance. For the next seventy-five minutes in a kind of vaudeville dance melodrama, the story unfolded while the house lights were merely dimmed. Three actors, in white make-up, would occasionally chant dialogue, but most of the time their feelings and thoughts were chanted by eight different male singers, but always one at a time. In one corner of the stage the woman had a group of five chanters along with five players of some stringed instruments to express her feelings and the woodsman had three of each across the stage. So, the telling of the story became an incredibly nuanced version of their inner conflicts. (There was also a tragic love story with a handsome but sad young man and a white bird hanging from a pole. But we'll leave his story for another time--it includes a bird bringing some kind of message, but we never quite understood it all). The woodsman gets drunk (an enormous red bowl of sake) and is going to chop down the cherry blossom tree with a huge axe. But a scrim in the tree trunk rolls up to reveal the spirit of the tree. She exits the tree and then the conflict begins. I didn't worry too much about the tree, but became engrossed in the feelings that were being expressed through all this elaborate staging. Actors often speak of their "instrument," but here the traditions of Kabuki gave the actors a complexity of "instruments." The woodsman had a costume change on stage (stagehands in black and gray scurried in and ducked behind the figure to help with the change) that revealed him to be some kind of evil figure. It was all quite wonderful. We couldn't take pictures so the ones here are from the program.


That was Friday night. Earlier that day, my Ritsumeikan colleague Yoshi Yamada took us to tour the Imperial Palace and out for a fabulous lunch at an all-tofu restaurant. Trust me, tofu comes in a seemingly infinite variety of tastes and textures and it's very good! Here's a picture of me and Yoshi in front of one of the building on the palace grounds.

Sunday we took the train to Uji, a small suburb south of Kyoto city that is famous for tea production. We went to see the requisite Byodoin temple with its famous winged "Phoenix" roof. But thanks to Jeff (my colleague and predecessor in this job), we hiked all the way to Mimurotoji Temple, way off the beaten path. As we neared the temple, the crowds increased and we discovered that we were visiting at the height of the hydrangea blooming season. It was spectacular! Acres of hydrangea of every conceivable hydrangea color--bright blues and purples fading into the softest of pinks--with blossoms the size of dinner plates. Earlier in the spring the garden had been ablaze with azaleas--those are the lovely green shapes in the background. At the top of an even steeper climb, we found the temple itself and Bill caught me at one of my favorite temple activities--ringing the large bell.















The little town itself, at least on the streets around Byodoin, seemed bathed in a green glow. Shops sold green tea flavored everything! We ate green tea noodles and green tea ice cream, and sampled a few other green tea delicacies. We've both actually developed quite a taste for the bitter frothy matcha of the tea ceremony, so I bought a whisk and some powder for our home consumption.

Monday again and not raining. It's the rainy season, but so far we've been quite lucky as it usually rains at night. Many of the days are heavy and humid though. Two classes this week (a relief after last week's marathon)--both on race discrimination. I already have over 80 ppts prepared! As everyone knows, there's quite a complex and sad history of race in the US. It's made me even more aware of how astonishing it is that Barack Obama was elected president. It's a lovely ending (at least in theory) to the "story" I'll be telling in this week's classes. Also this week--the second Legal Terms Quiz--this time from "Erie doctrine" to "strict liability." And the second "Movie Night" with "My Cousin Vinny" ("Itoko no Vinny"). It will be interesting to see how the humor translates. Thursday we're taking the Shinkansen to Tokyo to meet up with my friend Sondra who is coming to visit.