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Well this Sunday I went to Kabuki. This was the answer to the question I posed earlier. I`m sure that as no one got it right, I was able to do it and I thank you for it. I went to Kabuki in Kyoto.

Kabuki as described by Wikipedia:

Kabuki (歌舞伎) is a form of traditional Japanese Theater” title=”Theater”>theatre. The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing (歌), dance (舞), and skill (伎). Kabuki is therefore sometimes translated as “the art of singing and dancing.” Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate makeup worn by its performers.

The make up is very elaborate indeed. Think the night of the living deadesque white-faced geishas and maikos (of whom there was a whole row in the theater) for males. It was very enjoyable although I didn`t really follow the plot. When the actors spoke it sounded like a cross between a constipated man and Grandpa Simpson. Luckily they seemed to encourage us to bring in our own alcohol and so with my two half bottles of red wine and two half hour breaks in the three hour three act performance, I had time to catch up via Reiko and amuse myself drinking when I didn`t understand.

In fact it was no ordinary Kabuki this but Super Kabuki (oh yes) dealing with flying sorcerers and mythical beasts instead of radioactive superheoes and power hungry megolomaniacs. At one of the more surreal points of the performance, two babies (who had just been turned into a frog and a slug battled a serpent king. At the end of the fight, the toad became a bigger toad and then opened up to reveal a man flying on an eagle which was raised into the ceiling. Though I had got pretty far into my two bottles of wine by that stage, reports that I had completely lost the plot and was hallucinating were not to be treated as fact.

There were also two men at the far top corner of the stage behind a bamboo screen. One who played a shamisen - a three stringed instrument similar to a guitar whilst the other chanted in what I guessed to be a form of narration. There was also another bloke at the front corner whose sole job was two bang two small pieces of wood together when people got down to rumble or for emphasis. All in all it was a lot of fun and I`d recommend anybody to go and see it if they get the chance.