Kyoto performance reviews

Senrei Nishikawa  is gone, master artist and teacher On December 6, Senrei Nishikawa passed away. I had not seen her for over a year. She was sick, but apparently in good spirits, spending her time in the mountain home she loved, in northwest Kyoto.             Her manager Takae Hoshino only informed the world ten days later, enough time to prepare for the non-funeral home-visit. The path next to her house led to a lovely bamboo garden, low benches and even a heater for those waiting to enter a 4 tatami room and view the photo, urn, and sign a mourner’s book. Takae, looking worn and grateful, greeted visitors, who streamed in by twos and threes while I was there. The photo, Senrei looking hopefully in profile, in pastel kimono, and urn-bag embroidered were chosen by Sensei: a director to the end. I lit some incense and thanked her for her art and friendship. T.T.T. teacher       ...

The Graduate In the Fall of 1977 I was considering my options after graduation. Having been gone the previous spring to London, I fell into senior year with the excitement of renewing acquaintances (and a fantastic corner dormsuite), but less lead-time to the end of College days than others. Suddenly everyone around me seemed to be talking a bewildering alphabet soup of tests: MBA, GRE, MCAT, etc… or interviewing at grown-up companies like Hewlett-Packard. Doing good in the world? Sure, but we want to get paid for it, seemed to be the general drift. I felt like the game I had been playing seriously for the last three years turned out to only a training camp for the Future, whereas I thought it was the aim itself. Then I became aware of a program that appealed to my instincts to wander the world, see lots of art and music and theatre, and hone my craft as theatre critic and director. The Watson Fellowship allows undergraduates at select colleges to wander the world with a blank check,...

Kyogen's demise is constantly exaggerated. In the shadow of noh for centuries, kyogen began performing all-kyogen shows at ladies' clubs and festivals with increased frequency before the Pacific War. Then after the war, an upsurge in amateur students at home lessons and culture centers, university clubs and theatre companies, created large fan clubs for the big families like the Nomuras and in Kyoto, the Shigeyamas. NHK child stardom (Ippei Shigeyama) and teen acting (Nomura Mansai) led to more opportunities, new audiences, stretching the limits of the traditional world. Izumi Motohide fell from grace, paarental hubris and lack of respect to the powerful iemoto traditions. Female performers flared and spluttered. The bubble economy burst and people cut back on their theatre practice and viewing. And yet. This past month, not a very active one in the Japanese theatre calendar traditionally, I've seen a rakugo performer pair with a kyogen actor (each did their own genre, then...

Passing of my hero Sennojo SHigeyama, a great teacher, actor, and director passed away today. He was 88, and had last performed Oct 8th at the Shigeyama annual recital as a 99 year-old lecherous but cute old man. He will be missed. Sennojo was a child prodigy, making his stage debut at three years old, then performing at many events at department stores and festivals with his older brother,Senaku, still going, if not so strongly, at 91. But as the second son, he was not planning on a full-time kyogen career during pre-War Japan, so went to a commercial college, then learned to do accounting for Comfort Women stations and other facilities in Manchuria. On his return, he began his lifelong incredulity with the authorities and the press, who had lied so long and well about Japanese military successes abroad. While performing on weekends, he entered the black-market, then one day discovered a fox mask in an antique store, which led him back to kyogen full-time. His brother and he became kn...

Yume kara sameta yume Dream after dream Feb 4 2009 Much as I usually find too much to dislike about the ubiquitous Shiki Theatre Company—the canned music, hammy acting, conservative choreography, too-perfect smiles, cutesy girls and macho-elegant boys—they are at their best when creating their own works. Beauty & the Beast and Evita, while thrillingly live in NYC or London, appear energetic re-treads here, lacking stars or the rough magic that seeps through the professional polish. Shiki’s (re)productions of Disney or Rice always gleam with slick staging and sound and light, but at least to my mind they leave little after-taste. The Two Lottes, Yuta and the Funny Wind, and Ann of Green Gables were, however, inventive, original, musicals taking full advantage of the child-like wonderland that is Shiki’s special corner of the musical market. So my anticipation was happily rewarded with Yume kara sameta yume (From dream to waking dream), less Lorca than Lerner & Lowe. The story...

Cinema Kabuki: Rakuda/Renjishi The idea is a great one: to capture on HD video the excitement of live performance, then broadcast it in surrond-sound multiplex theatres around the country. The Metropolitan Opera continues its Met Live series, which include backstage interviews, shots of actors in close-up, and (in delayed broadcasts abroad) subtitled versions and (in DVDs released later) bonus track. But when it comes to Cinema Kabuki, something is not quite right. The curtain and chatty audience is captured just before opening, but after that there is no sense of the live spectators watching from varied angles around the auditorium (mind you, the three Met broadcasts I’ve seen similarly dismiss the audience as necessary clutter—or perhaps there are legal issues of including so many “extras”?). Kakegoe claque calls come from the “back”, while sporadic oohs, ahs, and laughter are heard. But except for the infrequent shots of the hanamichi (and adjoining patrons), the spectators themselv...

Why can’t Western instruments and noh work together? Why do Western-trained actors have trouble sharing the stage with Japanese noh-kyogen actors? And why oh why do producers seeking publicity, frisson, and doling civic funds equitably seek to marry the two in under-rehearsed, one-time experiments? Three reasons spring to mind: 1/ On a basic level of dramaturgy, the two are self-contained and other-rejecting. Noh’s frontal declamation style and stylized expression of emotion demands focus; Western “cheating” diagonals and detailed facial expression pulls focus from the stage picture to the individual portrait. Vocal energy and melodic chant, coiled taut and loosened strategically through MA pauses and accents in conjunction with drum/flute accompaniment are potently precise; Western vocal energy is emotionally, not musically based. It follows the flow of breath swept up in the surge of passion and concrete logic of debate. The trained actor’s voice itself is the instrument, needing no...