A Summer in the Theatre
Gareth Mattey DS2022
There is a lot I could focus on in this blog when talking about this July – how it begins and ends withacademic intensity (from the JLPT N3 exam at the beginning of July to the final exams of our second, andlast, semester at Waseda University), or how the summer heat and humidity continues to assault us
without mercy or quarter.
But, if you will forgive me, I would like to focus on what first inspired me to come to Japan, and how thatinspiration has continued to bloom while living here:
The theatre.
My first experience with Japan was in June 2018 – I attended a short workshop with Theater Nohgaku
on the structure and text of Japanese Noh theatre. For those not in the know (I’m sorry), Noh is amedieval Japanese theatrical art form, one that emerges from a mixture of choral poetry, traditional
dance, court music, and Shinto religious ritual. The name Noh (能) roughly translates as ‘skill’. It is an art
form well reputed for its impenetrability, as masked performers chant in Classical Japanese hard tounderstand even to Japanese audiences, but one that has inspired me ever since I directed a productionof an opera inspired by Noh (Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River) as an undergraduate.
The workshop in 2018 was about grappling withthe form’s structure and text, especially in theinter-relationship of rhythm (jo, ha, kyu), poetry,and structure. We also explored the translationof Noh, how we might write English language
Noh, and the difficulties implicit in these
propositions. It was this side of the workshop
which demonstrated to me that a true
engagement with Noh needed at least someunderstanding of the Japanese language.
And here we are – 5 years and 1 month later.
I am a little embarrassed to say that it has taken
me just shy of a year to return to the National
Noh Theatre and actually see a live Nohperformance again. But, thanks to the insistenceof my fabulous friend Christopher (a new convert
to the wonders of Noh), we booked in advancefor a play I had not yet seen or read about.
But first - before Noh is performed, it is common
for the audience to be treated to a performanceof kyougen – a kind of short comic farce. Thesefolk dramas, today performed on the same stage
as Noh, often gently lampoon the kinds of heroic

National Noh Theatreand mythic stories that Noh plays tend to love. Sometimes the comedy doesn’t stick the landing as it
crosses cultures and languages but fortunately for us, at this performance, Chris and I were treated tosomething genuinely funny, in which a bumbling daimyo and his committed servant contend with aparticularly confrontational mosquito. After our insectoid-themed ribaldry (which involved a lot of highpitched ‘buzzing’ from all involved on stage), the evening’s Noh performance began.
The play text of that evening's performance

Most Noh plays draw from Classical poetry andtexts, especially the Genji monogatari (The Taleof Genji). This performance was no different,
drawing its story from the Ise monogatari, acollection of prose and poetry lacking the samenarrative coherence as Genji. In many ways, theNoh play saw the same issue – character wasincredibly fluid as protagonists discussed andreveled in poetry and beauty. Compared withsome of my favourite works, like Aoi no Ue,
Sumidagawa and Matsukaze, it lacked more
explicit notions of drama and conflict, but wasnevertheless spellbinding in its slow methodical
combination of dance, music, and poetic
recitation.
For just the length of the performance, Chris andI were lifted up and away from our more
concrete worries and dropped into a new realm
entirely. We emerged as one should – slightlyconfused, slightly mystified, but with a strong
sense of having experienced something too
beautiful and too mystical to easily contain inwords. It was a feeling I remembered well fromthe last time I’d seen Noh performed live in Japanand was glad to be feeling its power again,undiminished by time.

If I knew the experience would be so beautiful though, why did it take me so long to see a Nohperformance again? Nearly a year is a long time after all compared with Noh’s brevity. Well, it wasmostly because of the intensiveness of the Japanese language classes (and many unfortunate overlaps
between class schedules and performance schedules), but it was also thanks to my discovery of that far
more well-known Japanese traditional theatre: the Kabuki.
Kabuki, whose kanji (歌舞伎) can be read as ‘the skill of singing and dancing’ but which emerges fromthe verb ‘to behave oddly, to dress strangely’, is the riotous younger sibling to Noh – still deeplyinterested in myth and structure, and still performed nearly exclusively by male performers, but
seemingly freer in its performance, wilder in its sensibilities, more playful, more extravagant, and moredramatic.
It is also significantly longer.

The Kabuki-za Theatre
Before this July, I had managed to see two full length Kabuki performances, both taking up the better
part of the day – a more traditional production at the Kabuki-za (once again with Chris) and a near 12hour Kabuki adaptation of the video game Final Fantasy X at a purpose-built rotating 360-degree theatre,
this time with Elliot. Both were incredible spectacles. Final Fantasy X brilliantly interweaved traditional
Kabuki styles and music with extraordinary video design, the audience block rotating with each newscene and location. The traditional performance was no less impressive – from fierce dramatic exits
down the hanamachi (a raised stage that runs directly down through the audience) to a fight with agiant centipede (each segment a different performer) to aerial swordfights and a final exit that lifted one
character into the roof above the audience’s heads.
Spectacle isn’t always necessary in Kabuki, but when a Kabuki performance commits to the spectacle,
you are in for a treat.

The curtain call of 'Final Fantasy X’What has helped further my new-found interestin Kabuki has been meeting and getting toknow Yabe-san, a specialist in Kabuki. ThroughAlexandra Rutter (a former scholar and theatre
director who still works and lives in Tokyo), I
met Yabe-san with the goal of language
exchange, but through her enthusiasm andconnections, I’ve had more and more
opportunities to see and understand Kabuki likenever before.
In July, Yabe-san very graciously organized aback-stage tour of the Kabuki stage at theNational Theatre. The tour was an incredible
experience. We walked across the hanamachi,
experienced the stage revolve (Kabuki has beenusing stage revolves for a much longer timethan the West End or Broadway), went
backstage and up close with instruments,
traditional sound effects, painted backdrops
and more. It is true that you can learn all about
these elements from textbooks and online, but
it is only in Japan that you get the opportunity
to see up close and personal just how theseincredible traditional spectacles get put inmotion. I am incredibly thankful to Yabe-san for
helping to build and nourish this interest ofmine!

Walking the hanamichi at the National Theatre's Kabukistage

For all its academic and heat-based intensities, July ended up giving me several wonderfully rewarding
experiences with Japan’s traditional theatre. But Japan is not all traditional theatre, something Alex has
helped me experience. From her production of Romeo and Juliet to her recent production of The Gardenof Words in London (an adaptation of Makoto Shinkai’s anime film), I’ve also gotten to see firsthandJapan’s commercial theatre scene – heavy in video design, telling new stories and reinventing old
through star casting, while drawing on video game and anime influences alike. It is a scene I’m excited toget further practical experience with myself as I undertake a work placement as a theatre translator
with Nelke Planning, the company behind Alex’s fantastic productions.
And so, July came to a close, with one major milestone of the scholarship completed – our academic
language studies at Waseda University. Just as importantly though, July helped me take a further step in
my engagement with Japanese theatre – from the stillness of Noh to the mechanisms of Kabuki andlooking forward to joining and hopefully contributing to the vibrancy of contemporary commercial
theatre. It has been creatively inspiring at every turn, and I cannot wait to start putting pen to paper (orrather, fingers to keys) and drawing all these influences together into something new.
In fact, Yabe-san has let me know of a yearly competition for new Kabuki scripts. My Japanese might not
yet be at the level where I can write creatively in it, but –Who doesn’t love a challenge?

Me and Yabe-san, on the National Theatre's Kabuku stage