Computers and Actors, Part 1

 

[I’ve recently finished posting a series of articles on Rick On Theater on theatrical design and technology from a Special Section of American Theatre (see “Design & Tech: The Magic Of Design,” 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24 September).  In my introduction to the first installment, I referenced an article I wrote called "Theater and Computers," posted on ROT on 5 December 2009, shortly after I started this blog.

[Now, as a sort of companion post to “The Magic Of Design,” I’m posting a small collection of articles dealing with the interface of actors and acting with computers, CGI, and computer animation.  Some of this is straight-up fascinating and intriguing, but other aspects and implications are daunting—especially to actors.]

“DREAMING THE IMPOSSIBLE AT M.I.T.”
by Philip Elmer-Dewitt
reported by Robert Buderi/Cambridge 

[In "Theater and Computers,” I affirmed that the impetus for writing that post had been an article I’d read decades earlier in Time magazine “that reported on a new computer program, developed at MIT, that let playwrights test scenes on screen without hiring actors and a stage.”

[That report was “Dreaming The Impossible at M.I.T.” by Philip Elmer-Dewitt, which appeared in Time on 31 August 1987—and I’m posting it now on ROT as a sort of predecessor to the AT series, which is almost 30 years newer than the Time report (and six years newer than my own take on Elmer-Dewitt’s discussion).]

In the Media Lab, the goal is to put the audience in control.

What if television sets were equipped with knobs that let viewers customize the shows they watch? If they could adjust the sex content, for example, or regulate the violence, or shift the political orientation to the left or right? What if motion pictures were able to monitor the attention level of audiences and modify their content accordingly, lengthening some scenes while cutting others short if they evoke yawns. What if the newspapers that reach subscribers’ homes every morning could be edited with each particular reader in mind – filled with stories selected because they affected his neighborhood, or had an impact on his personal business interests, or mentioned his friends and associates?

There are a lot of “what ifs,” but none of these is mere futuristic fantasy. All of them, in fact, are the goals of research projects now under way at the Media Laboratory, a dazzling new academic facility at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The lab’s unique mission is to transform today’s passive mass media, particularly TV, into flexible technologies that can respond to individual tastes. Because of advances in computers, says Nicholas Negroponte [b. 1943], 43, the co-founder and director, “all media are poised for redefinition. Our purpose is to enhance the quality of life in an electronic age.”

Two years ago [i.e., September 1985], when the lab first opened its doors in Cambridge, Mass., the announced intention of “inventing the future” seemed like an impossibly vague undertaking. But Negroponte has made believers of much of the corporate and academic establishment. Bankrolled by more than 100 business and government sponsors, he has filled his $45 million facility with a group of 120 gifted researchers that includes some of the brightest and quirkiest minds in computer science: Marvin Minsky [1927-2016], dean of artificial-intelligence research; Seymour Papert [1928-2016], disciple of Child Psychologist Jean Piaget [1896-1980] and a leading advocate of computerized education; Alan Kay [b. 1940], one of the most influential designers of personal computers.

Some of the projects are still in the visionary stage, but several investigative teams have come up with working products and prototypes. In many cases, research relating to electronic media has led to spin-offs that could have wide applications for both individuals and businesses. Consider the following:

⏵The lab’s Conversational Desktop is a voice-controlled computer system that acts like an automatic receptionist, personal secretary and travel agent – screening calls, taking messages, making airline reservations. “Get me two seats to the Bahamas," says Research Scientist Chris Schmandt [b. 1952] to his computer. “When do you want to go?" replies the machine. 

⏵NewsPeek is a selective electronic newspaper made of material culled daily from news services and television broadcasts. By sliding their fingers across the screen of a computer terminal, viewers can ask to see lengthier versions of particular stories, roll selected videotapes or call up related articles. The computer remembers what it has been asked to show and the next day tailors its news gathering to search for similar stories. Says Associate Director Andrew Lippman [b. 1949]: “It’s a newspaper that grows to know you.”

⏵The lab has developed the world’s first computer-generated freestanding hologram – a three-dimensional image of a green Camaro sedan suspended in midair. Unlike most holographic images, which are put onto flat photographic plates, the Camaro is recorded on a concave plate and projected into the air by laser beams. The hologram was designed with funding from General Motors, which still painstakingly builds scale models of new car designs out of clay. In the future, GM and other automakers may be able to use holograms to see what a car will look like before it is actually manufactured. Eventually, such images may be made by laser-age copying machines for a few dollars apiece.

⏵In the field of fine arts, the world-class music research center in the lab has already produced the Synthetic Performer, a computerized piano-playing accompanist. The system not only plays along with soloists but also adapts to changes in their tempo and cadence without losing a beat. The project is part of an ongoing effort to explore the mysteries of harmony and composition by teaching music appreciation to computers. 

Negroponte began raising funds for the Media Lab in 1980 with the help of Jerome Wiesner [1915-94], former M.I.T. president. The two men sought out publishers, broadcasters and electronics manufacturers whose businesses were being transformed by the advent of VCRs, cable television and personal computers. Then they hinted broadly that the faculty at M.I.T. knew precisely where all this was headed. Money came in from such leading sponsors as IBM, CBS, Warner Communications, 20th Century Fox, Mitsubishi, Time Inc. and the Washington Post. Sponsors can send scientists and other observers to the Media Lab and make commercial use of any of the facility’s research. Though many of the projects may never yield commercial or educational applications, only one company, Toshiba, has failed to renew its funding.

Visitors to the lab, a sleek four-story maze of gadget-filled work areas, are assaulted by strange sights. In a 64-ft.-high atrium, 7-ft.-long computer-controlled blimps may be flying overhead -- part of a project to develop stimulating science activities for elementary and high schools. In another area visitors encounter computers that can read lips. After spending three months at M.I.T. last year, Stewart Brand [b. 1938], the counterculture guru who originated the Whole Earth Catalog [1968-71], was impressed enough to write a flattering book titled The Media Lab, which will be published next month by Viking Press [September 1987].

But the lab’s high-tech razzle-dazzle masks plenty of serious business. Investigators are experimenting with new forms of teleconferencing. One idea involved projecting video images of individuals onto plaster casts of their faces. The resulting “talking heads” were so lifelike that people using the system felt they were "meeting" with colleagues who were actually in another city. A major effort is also being made to enhance computer animation. Assistant Professor David Zeltzer [b. 1949], building on research he started at Ohio State, is developing new ways of simulating human figures and movement. One application would allow playwrights to see just how scenes would look without having to hire live actors to try them out.

                                    David Zeltzer’s ”Skeletal Animation System,” ca. 1982

Within the Media Lab there is a lurking fear that the research might prove too successful. Some of the scientists, who point to TV’s mesmerizing impact, worry about creating new media so powerfully seductive that they might keep many viewers from venturing into the real world. Minsky, for one, has given that a lot of thought. “Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good,” he told Brand. “It would be the end of everything we know.” Yet he and his groundbreaking colleagues seem more than willing to take that risk.

[Philip Elmer-DeWitt (b. 1949) is a writer and editor and was Time magazine’s first computer writer and for 12 years its science editor.   He produced much of the magazine’s early coverage of personal computers and the Internet.  He retired from Time Inc., which he joined in 1979, in 2008 and is currently writing a daily blog about Apple Inc.

[I’m sure all you ROTters caught the comment that exercised actors—and even directors and designers: the statement in the last sentence of the penultimate paragraph reporting on the work of David Zeltzer, the expert in computer graphics and 3D animation.

[As you might imagine, Zeltzer’s now-primitive computer theater was seen as the nose of a very scary camel inside the tent.  If playwrights figure they don’t need actors, directors, and designers to see their work come alive, what might ensue?  (Imagine: holographic actors performing on a CGI set being reviewed by robot critics!  Oy vey iz mir!)  We could all be out of business permanently.]

*  *  *  *
“MOVIE STARS FEAR INROADS BY UPSTART DIGITAL ACTORS”
by Rick Lyman
 

[The trepidation I recounted among actors in the face of the MIT experiments Philip Elmer-DeWitt reported in the article above is evident in Rick Lyman’s New York Times article on 8 July 2001, “Movie Stars Fear Inroads By Upstart Digital Actors.”  Computer animation had advanced considerably in the 14 years since the Time magazine report.]

Aki Ross, a versatile young actress who stars in a movie to be released this week, rakes slender fingers through wind-rippled hair. The light contracts her pupils and glistens on sweat-streaked cheeks, as her eyes sparkle with the eerie illusion of intelligence.

It feels eerie because Aki is composed only of pixels, and she is created and manipulated by a computer animator who works his mouse like a weaver at his loom. Aki makes her bid for stardom as the heroine of “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within,” a fully digital film to be released on Wednesday [11 July 2001] by Columbia Pictures that is loosely based on a popular series of video games [Final Fantasy, a role-playing video game developed by Square Co., Ltd., in 1987].

“The eyes are one of the single biggest things that make people alive,” said Andy Jones, the animation director. “We’re moving the eyes around to make the character seem like it’s thinking and feeling for itself. Like there’s a soul.”

In Hollywood, many people believe digital production and distribution will revolutionize the way movies are shot, edited and sent to a multiplex near you. Already, the computer has made it possible to convincingly recreate ancient Rome and a dogfight over Pearl Harbor. Until now, just about all that has remained beyond the computer’s grasp has been the actor’s realm: too nuanced, too human, too unknowable for the animator’s skill.

But with movies like “Final Fantasy,” filmmakers are beginning to create photo-realistic computer characters that, at least in fleeting moments, will try to convince the audience that actual humans are on the screen.

It is called photo-realistic animation, and “Final Fantasy” promises to carry it further than any movie has.

Not everyone is overjoyed.

“I am very troubled by it,” said Tom Hanks, who does not like to think that his carefully chosen roles and hard-fought performances can be tampered with by after-the-fact computer auteurs, or that someone might make unwanted use of his digital self. “But it’s coming down, man. It’s going to happen. And I’m not sure what actors can do about it.”

The specter of the digital actor – a kind of cyberslave who does the producer’s bidding without a whimper or salary – has been a figure of terror for the last few years in Hollywood, as early technical experiments proved that it was at least possible to create a computer image that could plausibly replace a human being. But as “Final Fantasy” makes its way into theaters – the first of what promises to be a string of movies trying to put this challenge to the test – many wonder if the threat is as real as it once seemed, or if it simply takes computer animation down a fruitless cul-de-sac.

“I believe that I have used more digital characters than anyone,” said George Lucas, whose Jar Jar Binks, a virtual character in [1999’s] “Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace,” helped raise concerns in Hollywood. “But I don’t think I would ever use the computer to create a human character. It just doesn’t work. You need actors to do that.”

Steven Spielberg put it even more succinctly: “It’s a nonissue.”

But this has not alleviated the concerns of actors like Mr. Hanks, who are suspicious of the ways their images could be used in photo-real computer animation. And the Screen Actors Guild, which has closely monitored the use of digital actors since the emergence of Jar Jar Binks, says it will do so with even more vigor as photo-real characters actually begin to appear on the screen.

At Harbor Place, a new skyscraper on the downtown Honolulu waterfront, where Square Productions [a subsidiary of Square Co.], famous for its trend-setting video games, has set up a filmmaking division, the computer’s aquarium-blue glow filled a small cubicle on the 16th floor. It is as close to halfway between Tokyo and Hollywood as you can get without treading water.

“There is a Japanese saying that comes from the art of dollmaking, a sort of catch phrase, that the face is the life of the doll,” said Hironobu Sakaguchi, a celebrated Japanese video-game creator who is making his feature-film directing debut with this movie.

For now, it is impossible for computer-generated films to be made without actors. Actors are often used to capture the movement of characters, and as yet, no one has been able to figure out how to do without the voices of actors like James Woods, who personalizes the quasi villain General Hein in “Final Fantasy.”

The greater concern is not that digital actors will replace movie stars – even the most optimistic projections of the technology put that prospect far in the future – but that the technology may make it easier for the unscrupulous to make improper use of actors’ images (or of digital creations that are strikingly reminiscent of celebrities).

So far, the most significant legal challenge came in 1999, from Robyn Astaire, the widow of Fred Astaire [1899-1987]: she sued the Fred Astaire Dance Studios for using images from her late husband’s films in advertisements. Her suit failed, but she took her case to the California Legislature, which passed a bill [Astaire Celebrity Image Protection Act, 1999] making clear that the rights to celebrity images remained with the heirs for 70 years after the celebrity’s death.

Columbia Pictures showed about 17 minutes of “Final Fantasy” to some entertainment writers in the spring, and has only recently begun to screen the finished film for industry audiences. Many who have seen parts of the film have reacted with a mixture of astonishment and disappointment. “When it works, it works,” one rival studio marketing executive said. “And it works more often than I thought it would.”

[According to the movie website IMDb, due to the poor box-office performance of Final Fantasy, the first computer-animated motion picture with photo-realistic characters, Square Pictures announced its withdrawal from the film business in October 2001.]

Since 1982, when computer-generated images [were first used in entire sequences*] in a feature film with “Tron,” a not-so-secret goal of many computer animators has been to create convincingly lifelike human characters. Many have even dreamed of using the technology to bring long-dead stars back to life or, more intriguingly, to create virtual images of a performer in youth and then graft that digital skeleton over the shape of that same actor, now middle-aged or older. The prospect delights many directors, who dream of an endlessly pliable performer whose work can be digitally tweaked to generate exactly the desired effect.  

[*statement adjusted pursuant to a correction that appeared in the New York Times a week after this article was published.]

“Filmmaking is always going to be a collaborative art,” the director Ron Howard said. “But we are getting to the point where the director will have even greater control over the look and feel of the film, even down to the individual performances.”

And producers can see the benefits of a performer who requires no salary, no days off, no coterie of agents and publicists, one who could be called into service at any time to promote or endorse anything, with every nickel going into the producer’s pocket. The topic will be explored intriguingly in “Simone,” a film currently in production for release in 2002 from the writer-director Andrew Niccol (“The Truman Show” [1998]). Al Pacino plays a movie producer whose star storms off the set. He responds by secretly replacing her with a digital actress. (The filmmakers are being coy about whether Simone will be played in the film by a live actress, a digital one or some combination of the two.) The problem is that he succeeds too well. Simone – Sim One, get it? – becomes an overnight sensation, and the producer must prolong the illusion that she is an actual person [see also  “‘Virtual Superstars?’” in “Computers and Actors,” Part 2, coming 7 October].

[After seeing the photo-realism of the computer-generated actors in Final Fantasy, IMDb reports, the producers of Simone (styled on the poster and in advertising as S1mØne) started to lean toward the idea of having Simone actually be a computer generated actress.  However, after opposition from the Screen Actors Guild (now merged with American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to form SAG-AFTRA), arguing that replacement of actors in all movies would be the next logical step, the idea was abandoned.  Ultimately, Simone was played by (human) actress Rachel Roberts.  The film received mixed reviews from critics and was considered a minor box-office hit.]

The technological tools that might allow computer animators to create convincing digital actors would also give producers and directors the ability to alter or augment a performance, whether the actor likes it or not. In the climax of [1997’s] “Contact,” the director Robert Zemeckis wanted a long, emotional close-up of the star, Jodie Foster, as she stared into a visionary Eden beyond the stars. But in the last few seconds of the best take, one of Ms. Foster’s eyebrows involuntarily twitched upward, Mr. Zemeckis explained. “So I just went in and moved the eyebrow,” he said.

While this instance falls far short of actually reaching in and creating a performance out of whole cloth, it certainly points in that direction.

“I know Tom is worried about it,” said Mr. Zemeckis, who has frequently collaborated with Mr. Hanks, including on the Oscar-winning “Forrest Gump.” In that 1993 film, Mr. Zemeckis used what were then the latest digital tools to implant the actor’s image into actual historical scenes, though not to alter Mr. Hanks performance.

“But I’ve taken to making digital scans of all of the actors in my movies,” Mr. Zemeckis said. “I know some are worried about what uses will be made of it, but think of what we could have – complete digital versions of actors at various stages in their life.”

Many of the biggest leaps in computer animation are introduced at Siggraph, the annual gathering of the nation’s computer graphics and animation specialists. One of the most talked-about efforts of recent years was a film shot for Seattle’s new rock ’n’ roll museum. [The Artist’s Journey: Funk Blast, 2000; the museum, now called the Museum of Pop Culture, was the Experience Music Project.] The film appears to be a performance by a young James Brown. But it isn’t. The filmmakers cunningly superimpose the performance of the current-day Mr. Brown, who is 68, over a digital skeleton of the performer as a young man. [Brown died in 2006 at age 73.]

“The next hurdle, the next step, will be a soliloquy or a dramatic performance,” said Joshua Kolden, who worked on the James Brown project. “It won’t be long.”

But it will be trickier, he and his colleague Andre Bustanoby agreed, because people are accustomed to the signals that tell us whether someone is sincere, threatening, flirtatious, sober or plain off his noodle. “The problem with human faces is that you get just a little bit off, and it immediately becomes very disturbing,” Mr. Bustanoby said.

Eventually, if animation technology and artistry continue to improve, it will be possible for directors to reach deeper into a filmed performance – doing more than simply unarching an eyebrow. If preview audiences didn’t like the ending where the hero died, it’s easily fixed. And cheaply, too. The hero can just be digitally resuscitated and sent off into a virtual sunset.

“The advantage of computer-graphic actors is that they don’t do any complaining,” Mr. Sakaguchi said. “The vision I have is to take the characters that we have in this movie and basically help them be viewed as real actors and actresses. And so, we sort of become a talent agency.”

Well, exactly.

Once the goal of creating a photo-real human character is reached – if for no other reason than to show that it is indeed possible – many computer animators believe that the next generation of animated films will move away from photo-realism. Already, many projects under way are tending toward a warmer, almost impressionistic look.

“Once you sit down in front of that box, it’s infinity in there,” said Neil Eskuri, who was the digital effects supervisor for Disney’s [2000] “Dinosaur,” a hybrid of photo-real computer animation and live-action footage. “Given enough time, you can make that box do anything.”

*  *  *  *
“THE ANCIENT ART OF KABUKI MADE NEW, WITH COMPUTER ANIMATION”
by Micheline Maynard

[In that same 2009 post, I cited as an example of the collision of computers and theater a kabuki production by Koji Orita.  From the “Circuits” section (sec. G) of the New York Times of 2 May 2002, here’s a report on that experiment in computer graphics for the stage.]

KOJI ORITA was looking for a way to stage a kabuki play that tells of a mythical creature who escapes from a river and becomes the companion of a bumbling fisherman. He found his solution watching the movie “Terminator 2.”

Inspired by the computer graphics techniques used to turn Arnold Schwarzenegger into a cyborg, Mr. Orita created an animated creature that sang, ate and conversed onstage during the play, “Aki No Kappa,” performed in March at the National Theater of Japan [9-24 March 2002; the first time in Kabuki history CG animations were used in a performance].

The show was a milestone for kabuki, a 600-year-old art form in which men play all the parts and the sets and the acting style are guided by tradition [see my post “Kabuki: A Trip to a Land of Dreams,” 1 November 2010]. “We wanted to show an audience that we could create a new type of play, even within the old arts of Japan,” said Mr. Orita, who has been a kabuki director for 30 years.

“Aki No Kappa” had won a competition for new kabuki plays in 1982 but had never been staged. The script did not call for the water creature, or kappa, to be seen by the audience. It was meant to be imaginary, like the giant rabbit in “Harvey.” But Mr. Orita wanted it to be visible to the audience, like the ghost of Hamlet’s murdered father.

Years before, Mr. Orita had visited the Universal Studios theme park near Los Angeles, where technicians explained special effects techniques used in movies. But the kappa could not be filmed because it had to react to the other actors onstage. Mr. Orita began scouting in Tokyo for computer technicians familiar with real-time motion systems, which combine three-dimensional computer graphics with animation to make characters that can move and speak.

First, the theater’s art department made a detailed drawing of the kappa. The picture was scanned into a computer and translated into a series of mathematical calculations.

Mr. Orita, meanwhile, selected an actor from the Kabuki Company to play the kappa offstage. The actor was wired with sensors at 12 key joints on his body. The sensors fed movement data into the computer, which transmitted it to matching points on the cartoon version of the kappa. The information created a hologram that was projected on a 67-inch screen. Each time the actor moved, the kappa moved, too.

Getting from concept to live performance required some ingenuity and cooperation from the cast. It was the first time the computer experts had worked with kabuki actors, said Mr. Orita, who called the play “a test case.” Despite the complexity of the task, he said, the addition of the kappa required only one more day of rehearsal than other plays.

Along the way, the computers occasionally froze, leaving the kappa in suspended animation. And more than once, an error message was transmitted to the screen instead of the kappa. When that would happen, an actor would jump in front of the screen, arms outstretched, as if to keep the audience from seeing the mishap.

The play’s three-week run was glitch-free and almost a sellout. And Mr. Orita says the kappa will come back to the National Theater. He plans to use the kappa and its wife and child (who are not depicted in the play) as the virtual guides for an interactive kabuki education center that the theater expects to open next year. [In 2003, the Traditional Performing Arts Information Center opened behind the National Theater.]

Mr. Orita said that computerized characters were likely to appear in future kabuki shows. Already the technology is more refined, meaning that actors will not need to be tethered to sensors, he said. He believes that the animated characters will someday be able to move and speak on their own.

The new methods have enlivened an ancient tradition, Mr. Orita said, providing new proof that “kabuki is a performance art that is very much alive and kicking.”

[It’s one of the attributes of kabuki that alongside its ancient and codified acting and production practices, called kata, it allows for and even welcomes modern techniques—although computer animation is by far the most radical adoption of which I’d ever heard.

[In addition to “A Trip to a Land of Dreams,” I have one more kabuki article on ROT: “Grand Kabuki (July 1985),” a review of the 1985 performances of the Tokyo company at the Met, 6 November 2010.  There are also some reposted pieces from other authors on the subject: “Two Kabuki Reviews (2014)” by Charles Isherwood (New York Times) and Joan Acocella (New Yorker), 20 January 2018, and “‘Kabuki: Inside the Japanese Artform with its Biggest Star, Ebizo’” by Jon Wertheim (60 Minutes), 1 May 2020.]

"Kabuki: Inside the Japanese Artform with its Biggest Star, Ebizo"

by Jon Wertheim

[I was watching the CBS-TV venerable newsmagazine 60 Minutes on Sunday evening, 19 April 2020, when it broadcast a segment of great interest to me: Japanese Kabuki theater.  This segment is a profile of a current Kabuki acting star, Ichikawa Ebizo XI, and with heretofore rare candor, Ebizo talks to correspondent Jon Wertheim about his life in this traditional theater form and his art. 

[The word kabuki is derived from the Japanese verb ‘to tilt’ or ‘to lean to one side’ and means ‘something abnormal or askew’ in the sense of deviating from the ordinary.  So Kabuki actually means ‘off-beat performance,’ something deliberately outrageous.

[The 60 Minutes webpage for this story includes a 13-minute video, “Inside the Japanese artform of Kabuki,” which includes some scenes from performances.  If you’ve never seen a Kabuki play, this will show why the name fits so perfectly.  (The website for the segment is at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kabuki-japanese-theater-art-make-up-dances-ebizo-60-minutes-2020-04-19/; the video can be accessed directly at https://www.cbsnews.com/video/kabuki-japanese-theater-art-make-up-dances-60-minutes-2020-04-19/.)]

For centuries, Japan has celebrated a unique art that brings together acting, singing and athleticism, performed before audiences that, at times, act like they’re at a sporting event rather than a theater. Jon Wertheim reports on the “off-kilter” world of Kabuki.

If the story of coronavirus has dominated your thoughts — and how could it not — here’s a story that likely hasn’t. Before the global pandemic, Japan was set to confer one of its highest honors on one of its most towering celebrities, a man who was supposed to be a kind of ambassador at the Tokyo Olympics. But Ebizo, so big he goes by only one name, is not an actor, a singer or an athlete. Actually, he’s all three. He’s the brightest star in the cosmos of Kabuki, the eccentric theater art unique to Japan. Kabuki stars are not just made, they’re born into dynasties, distinguished families passing the craft, and that trademark Kabuki glare, from one generation to the next. We went to Japan in February, to meet the man breathing fresh life into this beguiling 400-year-old art form.

Kabuki is, well, what is it exactly? Performed exclusively by men, it is equal measures drama and melodrama, at once volcanic and tempered, part opera, part dance, part pro wrestling. And it is, proudly, more than a little over the top. Kabuki has been called “a masterpiece of heritage,” by no less than the United Nations. And here’s a good sign you’ve reached the pinnacle of this art: You have a personal “spritzer” perfuming the path to your dressing room. So it goes for Ebizo Ichikawa, Kabuki’s biggest star. He invited us backstage for a rare look at preparations before a show.

No ritual here is more elaborate, more central, than the application of makeup, which the actors do themselves.

Jon Wertheim: When you go through that ritual of putting on the makeup, what do you go through?

Ebizo (Translation): The makeup brings you into the role. It’s a time for you to step into that role and become the character.

If you think his makeup looks heavy, get a load of Ebizo’s costume; one hundred thirty pounds and packed with ice, to keep him cool for hours on stage.

And the guy knows how to make an entrance.

In this production he plays a faithful lieutenant, ironic since, in real life, Ebizo is the center of attention.

Yet, for all the extravagant trappings, Kabuki came from humble origins.

In 1603, right around the time Shakespeare first started staging his plays in London, here in Kyoto a woman named Okuni came down to the river and began performing interpretive dance dramas which, like Shakespeare’s plays, found an audience among the common folk. These stylized performances, once banned, grew to become a national art form: Kabuki . . . derived from a Japanese word meaning something a little off-kilter.

Kyoto is where we met Kabuki’s crown prince, 42 years old and looking every bit the modern pop star in designer glasses and a tailored suit.

Jon Wertheim: What is it like performing here?

Ebizo (Translation): Being able to perform something that started as an entertainment for the masses in front of so many people, is a great honor and pleasure.

Mere days before social distancing, they showed up en masse for Ebizo’s sold-out run here, one stop on his national Kabuki circuit. But, in a country with an aging population, the groupies aren’t teenagers. One longtime fan admitted to being a little nervous to see the star in person.

After the show, a crush of well-dressed patrons, overwhelmingly female, waited to send him off.

His longtime friend Denjiro Tanaka, the lead musician on stage, performs with Ebizo every day.

Jon Wertheim: What distinguishes him as a performer, as you see it?

Denjiro Tanaka (Translation): I would have to say his aura is something which is very unique. Which you can sense almost coming out of him. It’s the power of his eyes and of his gaze.

Yes, the eyes have it.

That stare is called a “mie” and it’s Ebizo’s signature move, like John Wayne’s walk. The mie is meant to draw the audience in, conveying a character’s raw emotion, while the crowd goes wild.

But when we asked him to tell us more, Ebizo politely declined.

Jon Wertheim: Could you teach it to me?

Ebizo (in English): No. Difficult.

Jon Wertheim: Family secret?

Ebizo (Translation): Yes, basically.

We traced Ebizo Ichikawa’s family secret all the way here, to the Naritasan Temple, outside Tokyo.

This Buddhist priest told us the famous stare was inspired by this god, Fudo. In the 1600s, Ebizo’s ancestor, Ichikawa Danjuro the 1st, an early Kabuki talent, came here to pray to Fudo for a son. His prayers were answered. A son was born and with him, a family dynasty: the Ichikawa Danjuro line. Through the centuries, they would canonize a repertoire of 18 classic plays.

Ebizo’s grandfather, Danjuro the 11th, and father, Danjuro the 12th, were bona fide Kabuki matinée idols, famous as much for their good looks as their skill.

Ebizo trained under his father and performed with him until his death seven years ago. Last year, Ebizo announced that he would take on the Danjuro name, the 13th man of the Ichikawa lineage to take on that title. 

Jon Wertheim: What does that mean to you?

Ebizo (Translation): Well, I think the time has come.

Jon Wertheim: Why do you say that?

Ebizo (Translation): It’s my fate, you know. This is the house I was born into, what I have trained for.

Jon Wertheim: Is there one quality shared by all the men with the Danjuro title?

Ebizo (Translation): I think really holding the whole future of Kabuki on your shoulders.

Jon Wertheim: That’s how you feel?

Ebizo (Translation): Yes. It’s not just about me. I really need to think about the whole enterprise.

Mark Oshima, an American living in Tokyo, translates Kabuki plays into English and has followed these Kabuki bluebloods.

Mark Oshima: I mean, Ebizo looks like a Kabuki actor.  And he comes from what people think of as a pure Kabuki family. So people all say, “He’s a thoroughbred.” And Japanese love thoroughbreds.

That said, Kabuki has never been an especially profitable enterprise, given massive overhead: giant casts on ornate sets. The hope is that Ebizo will be a one-man boom to the industry.

Jon Wertheim: What’s going on in the audience during performances?

Mark Oshima: It’s just like a sports crowd.

Mark Oshima: You know, there are times when you have your beers and hot dogs, and times when you cheer...

Mark Oshima: Times when you pay attention to what’s going on and times when you don’t.

Jon Wertheim: You’ll also hear audiences during these performances yelling out, “Narita-ya.”

Mark Oshima: This is something called a yago, or house name. If I were going to cheer you on, I would say “60 Minutes!” Now you may — every — everyone would know that. Ebizo’s yago comes from the temple at Narita, which has been very, very important to generations and generations of — of — Danjuro.

Jon Wertheim: So there’s real connoisseurship here.

Mark Oshima: Connoisseurship.

Jon Wertheim: You should feel free to yell out the 60 Minutes yago anytime you want.

For all its idiosyncrasies, Kabuki is grueling business. Actors perform for hours every day, sometimes twice a day, month after month.

Ebizo (Translation): Every morning, I have to assess my condition.

Ebizo (Translation): I have to figure out: can my body do this today? Can it do that?

Jon Wertheim: You speak like an athlete. Do you think of yourself as an athlete?

Ebizo (Translation): Yes, but with no off-season.

Not unlike some athletes, Ebizo indulged in his share of nights out in his youth, once getting into a nasty bar brawl. An entire country worried the injuries to his face would thwart the trademark stare. His friend Tanaka recalls this rebellious phase.

Denjiro Tanaka (Translation): Yes. When he was young, he was a bit of a bad boy, you could say. He was quite famous in the Kabuki world for that. But I think to be a superstar, in a way, you do need to be a bit of a bad boy. Otherwise, getting up on stage in front of thousands of people, you wouldn’t be able to charm them with your performance.

Leaving his bad boy days behind him, Ebizo proved himself last summer in Tokyo, taking on 13 roles in a four-hour production. He could be seen slipping offstage as the dutiful wife and reappearing seconds later as the warrior. 

Jon Wertheim: Can you name the roles? Do you remember?

Ebizo (Translation): Ehhhh (laugh). Yeah, I can’t remember them all right now. There are too many of them.

And Ebizo plays yet another role full time: single dad.

It was ten years ago, with fanfare befitting a royal wedding, that Ebizo married a popular Tokyo newscaster, Mao Kobayashi. In short order, they had a daughter and a son. But in 2014, Mao was diagnosed with breast cancer.

When she passed away three years later, all of Japan went into mourning.

Jon Wertheim: What would you like people to know about her?

Ebizo (Translation): About Mao. I just think about my son and daughter, the way they are maturing, without Mao, none of that would have been possible. She was a human overflowing with love and I hope people won’t forget that.

He told us he tries his best to balance performing with parenting. Made a little easier when his son Kangen, now seven, announced that he would follow his father into Kabuki.

Jon Wertheim: Kangen is now in the same line of work as you are and your father and his father. How do you feel about that?

Ebizo (Translation): At the moment, he’s talented. He’s very cute. But I’m sure one day he’ll face some struggles in his life, in Kabuki. And so I need to make sure I can support him . . . without being overprotective.

His son Kangen is already adept at tapping into his emotions as an actor.

Watch how his eyes well up while he rehearses a scene about a boy who’s separated from his father.

Jon Wertheim: I’ve seen Kangen already does connect with the audience. Did you teach him that?

Ebizo (Translation): No, I think it really comes naturally to him.

Also a natural gift: Kangen’s ability to sneak in a nap during makeup.

As for Ebizo’s 8-year-old daughter Reika, a dancer in training, going into the family business is not as straightforward. Women are banned from most Kabuki stages, though perhaps not for much longer if you ask her father.

Jon Wertheim: Does any part of you regret that she won’t be able to have a career as a Kabuki actor?

Ebizo (Translation): It’s not set in stone that she can’t one day become a Kabuki actor herself.

Jon Wertheim: You’d like to see more women involved in Kabuki?

Ebizo (Translation): It used to be that everybody was, you know, “Kabuki, you know, it’s only for men.” But I think that’s quite an old-fashioned way of looking at it.

If anyone can modernize the art form, it’s Ebizo. His influence in Japan transcends Kabuki; his face moves magazines. 

His multi-million dollar endorsement portfolio includes McDonald’s.

And case in point: he recently adapted Star Wars for Kabuki. But the future, as they say, will have to wait.

This week, Japan expanded a state of emergency in the face of Coronavirus to cover the entire country. Kabuki theaters, like theaters across the world, went dark last month.

As they wait for the lights to come back up, this source of continuity, the man who will braid together Kabuki’s past and its destiny, also waits, proudly, an artist in full bloom.

[Ichikawa Ebizo is formally Ichikawa Ebizo XI in Kabuki circles.  (His birth name is Takatoshi Horikoshi, born 6 December 1977 in Tokyo.)  Five-year-old Kangen Horikoshi, now that he’s in the profession as well, will take the stage name Ichikawa Shinnosuke VIII; his father had held the name Ichikawa Shinnosuke VII from 1985 until 2004, when he became Ebizo XI. 

[(The Japanese traditionally put the family name before the given name.  While all Kabuki actors retain the traditional order of their stage names, most Japanese born after the Meiji Restoration (1868) use Western order for their birth names.)

[As Wertheim says above, Kabuki actors are born into established acting families.  It’s also possible to be adopted into a Kabuki family; Ichikawa Danjuro XI (1909-65), Ebizo’s grandfather, was an adopted son and rose to the family’s highest position.  (Today it’s possible to enter the Kabuki theater by studying at the professional training academy, the Kabuki Actor Training Center opened in 1969, but without family connections, such an actor won’t have access to the hereditary roles, plays, or techniques which are the property of each family.) 

[As an actor moves higher in the professional rankings by dint of talent and skill, he succeeds to more prestigious names.  Danjuro XII (b. 1946), Ebizo’s father, died in 2013 and Ebizo will be elevated to that name in July, becoming Danjuro XIII.  Danjuro is the loftiest name in the Ichikawa family—Danjuro I (1660-1704) was the founder of the line—and Ichikawa is the most important family in Kabuki, making the current Ebizo XI the most eminent Kabuki actor of this generation.

[The ceremony conferring Ebizo’s new name on him was to occur in May during the Tokyo Olympics, but because of the coronavirus pandemic, the name-taking has been postponed until July.  (The 2020 Olympics have, of course, been rescheduled for next year.) 

[Young Kangen’s name-taking will occur at the same time as his father’s, but you’ll notice that there’s no mention of Ebizo’s daughter, Reika, receiving an Ichikawa family stage name.  She’s studying Kabuki dance but by tradition, she can’t perform traditional Kabuki theater.  (There are some experimental Kabuki and hybrid troupes in Japan which include both male and female actors.)  It’s an all-men’s art form—though Ebizo indicates that he’s not averse to some modernization in this regard.  If that tradition does change, perhaps in Reika’s lifetime, then the naming tradition may also evolve.

[One more point about Kabuki actors’ names: Wertheim remarks above that Ebizo is so famous that he goes by only one name.  It’s not really the same thing as Cher or Madonna or Prince, though.  The fact is that all well-known Kabuki actors are commonly called by their given stage names

[As many  ROTters know, I am a great admirer of Kabuki theater and I’ve blogged about it several times.  Interested readers should check out these old posts: “Kabuki: A Trip to a Land of Dreams,” 1 November 2010; “Grand Kabuki (July 1985),” 6 November 2010; and “Two Kabuki Reviews,” 20 January 2018.  (That “Grand Kabuki” post is a review of the 1985 performances of the Tokyo company at Lincoln Center.  At that visit, I saw Danjuro XII perform and he had just been elevated to that name.  Part of the performance was the Kojo, the ceremony announcing the new name.  It was the first time the ceremony, which is presented for several months after the name-taking,  was performed outside Japan.)

[Incidentally, among the star actors appearing with the Grand Kabuki in that 1985 tour was Bando Tamasaburo V (b. 1950), the most popular onnagata (a male Kabuki actor who plays female roles) of the day.  Tamasaburo, who often played opposite Danjuro XII, is an adopted member of a Kabuki acting family.  He became a Living National Treasure in 2012.  (Tamasaburo’s adoptive father, Morita Kan’ya XIV, died in 1975 and Tamasaburo would be allowed to take the name of Morita Kan’ya XV but he’s declared several times that he won’t.)]

Two Kabuki Reviews (2014)

[As readers of Rick On Theater may know, I’m a big fan of Kabuki, one of the traditional theater forms of Japan.  I’ve blogged on it a couple of times in the years I’ve edited this blog: “Kabuki: A Trip to a Land of Dreams,” posted on 1 November 2010, and “Grand Kabuki (July 1985),” 6 November 2011; Kabuki has also made an appearance on other posts, most prominently “Theater and Computers,” 5 December 2010.  A little over three years ago, the Heisei Nakamura-za of Tokyo came to New York City with the 19th-century play The Ghost Tale of the Wet Nurse Tree, based on a story by Sanyutei Encho.  Below are two reviews of that production at the Rose Theater in the Time Warner Center (7-12 July 2014).]

“HOVERING GHOST, PLUNGING WATER”

by Charles Isherwood

[Isherwood’s review appeared in the New York Times’ “Arts” section on 9 July 2014.  (The reviewer has since left the paper.)]

A Kabuki Drama at the Lincoln Center Festival

“Protect the Prada!”

That’s an admonition you might expect to hear screeched over a boozy lunch on the Upper East Side, when a glass of cabernet takes a fall. Instead, it’s being offered with a smile by a genial Japanese actor in a kimono in the Kabuki drama being presented as the opening night offering of this year’s Lincoln Center Festival. He offers the advice while passing out plastic ponchos to the first few rows of audience members, who are soon to be soaked by the overflow of the onstage waterfall that is one of the many lively effects in this splendidly entertaining show, “Kaidan Chibusa no Enoki,” which translates (rather awkwardly) as “The Ghost Tale of the Wet Nurse Tree.”

Presented by the venerable Heisei Nakamura-za company, a theater whose roots date back several centuries, the production manages the nifty feat of blending Kabuki tradition with contemporary innovation. Despite the language barrier (headphones provide simultaneous translation), the resulting show, at the Rose Theater, easily draws us into an elaborate melodrama about a samurai turned artist, his loving wife, the evil usurper who seduces her and seeks to kill him, and, well, lots more.

Although that waterfall in the second act is indeed a bit of a marvel, the most jaw-dropping spectacle on view is the quick-change performance of Nakamura Kankuro, who plays three major roles. He’s Hishikawa Shigenobu, the painter who falls victim to his enemy’s machinations, and later returns as a ghost; Shosuke, Shigenobu’s loyal if addlepated servant, who is blackmailed by the villain into betraying his master; and Uwabami no Sanji, a rogue allied with the villain but with his own ambitions.

Mr. Nakamura, the eldest son of a revered Kabuki actor who died in 2012 (he shares his name, as is traditional), differentiates the roles with the natural versatility of a Western actor of similar wide-ranging gifts. And yet central to the thrill of his performance is recognizing when he has shifted from one role to another, often in the blink of an eye, and usually when two of the characters are sharing a scene. The audience, primed to the appeal of these seemingly miraculous changes, applauds each of them as if it were a burst of fireworks.

To cite just one example, during a climactic scene in which Shosuke enters a temple to announce the grievous news that Shigenobu has been killed (he knows because he was an accomplice), his news is laughed off, because the monks insist that Shigenobu is resting. Soon Shosuke has disappeared into a crowd and, within seconds, Shigenobu (or is it his ghost?) stands before us, ready to put the crowning touches on a painting. The marvel of Mr. Nakamura’s performance, aside from the charm of his characterizations (particularly the comically put-upon Shosuke), resides in these illusions, which are all the more impressive given the elaborate kimonos, wigs and makeup that define each of his three characters. At one point during a recent performance, Mr. Nakamura even switched roles as two of his characters collided in one of the theater’s aisles, just a few feet away from me. I still couldn’t tell you exactly how the feat was performed.

But Mr. Nakamura’s bravura performance is just one of the many rewards of the show, which hews to the stylistic hallmarks of traditional Kabuki but also features interludes in which minor players amble among the audience members, trading comical small talk in English (“One actor, three parts — amazing!”) and joshing with them (“Next time, upgrade,” one says to the viewers in the cheaper seats), while tapping away at their smartphones. The seamless manner in which classical style and contemporary humor are blended speaks to the smart stewardship of Mr. Nakamura, who inherited the reins after his father’s death.

Mr. Nakamura’s brother, Nakamura Shichinosuke, portrays the onnagata role (a woman’s part played by a man) of Oseki, Shigenobu’s wife, imbuing her with demure dignity and pathos, her downcast eyes almost always shying away from meeting those of others. He moves with a silky grace, and under the stark white makeup and elaborate black wig can scarcely be recognized as a man. The other major role, of the archvillain Namie, is imposingly filled by Nakamura Shido, a superb actor firmly in the Kabuki tradition, his slanting black eyebrows signifying his malign intent, his mouth a thin slash of menace.

At moments of highest drama, signified by the clapping of wooden blocks by musicians at the side of the stage, the actors strike classical poses that they accentuate with exaggerated repetitions or arch gestures. These, too, are cheered by knowing audience members as beloved set pieces of the genre, and by the end of the show, you may find yourself happily applauding them, too.

It is probably advisable to read the synopsis before the play begins, if only to familiarize yourself with the general flow of the story. Still, this could make your head spin, as the convolutions appear far more tortuous when reduced to prose than when enacted onstage. If you find yourself bewildered trying to track the characters and their relationships in the early going, when a subplot about the previous dark deeds of Namie, performed under another name, are described, just wait; things will sort themselves out pretty clearly.

But even should you get lost for a while in the mechanics of the narrative, there are visual pleasures to salve your confusion. The production’s design, relying heavily on beautifully painted flats, is both sumptuous and elegantly simple. Scenes depicting various settings — Shigenobu’s household, a restaurant, a temple, that flowing waterfall and the titular tree — are separated by the ceremonial drawing across the stage of a huge curtain painted in stripes of black, white and dark red that is itself an eye-pleasing delight.

The Lincoln Center Festival’s theatrical offerings this year are skimpy: just this production, which runs through Saturday, and Jean Genet’s “The Maids,” with Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert, to be presented in August, after the festival traditionally ends, and not in the vicinity of Lincoln Center but at City Center. (Go figure.) But the pleasures of the Heisei Nakamura-za company, returning for the third time, are such that this production, with its high theatricality, low comedy, subtle musical accompaniment, choral interludes and lush designs, can almost be regarded as a festival in itself.

Kaidan Chibusa no Enoki  (The Ghost Tale of the Wet Nurse Tree)

Based on a solo narrative created by Sanyutei Encho, sets and costumes based on traditional design; lighting by Ikeda Tomoya; sound by Naito Hiroshi. A Heisei Nakamura-za production, presented by the Lincoln Center Festival, Boo Froebel, producer. At the Rose Theater, Frederick P. Rose Hall,  60th Street and Broadway (Time Warner Center, Columbus Circle). 7–12 July 2014. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. Performed in Japanese, with English translation via headset.

WITH: Nakamura Kankuro (Hishikawa Shigenobu/Shosuke/Uwabami no Sanji), Nakamura Shido (Isogai Namie), Nakamura Shichinosuke (Oseki), Kataoka Kamezo (Matsui Saburo/Unkai), Nakamura Kannojo (Yorozuya Shinbei), Nakamura Sanzaemon (Senjyu Shigezaemon), Nakamura Kosaburo (Takeroku), Nakamura Choshi (Okiku/Otatsu) and Sawamura Kunihisa (Ohana).

*  *  *  *

“HIGH SPIRITS: KABUKI AT LINCOLN CENTER”

by Joan Acocella

[This review appeared in the New Yorker on 28 July 2014.  Joan Acocella has written for the New Yorker, reviewing dance and books, since 1992, and became the magazine’s dance critic in 1998.]

For people accustomed to the cooler precincts of modernist and postmodernist art, it is often a joy to reëncounter older, messier forms of theatre, with coincidences and murders and the like. Therefore, when I arrived at the Rose Theatre for “The Ghost Tale of the Wet Nurse Tree,” the Kabuki company Heisei Nakamura-za’s contribution to the Lincoln Center Festival, I was not surprised to find the lobby packed with people spending too much money at the snack bar and looking as though they were going to a soccer game.

Here, with considerable abridgment, is what happens in “The Ghost Tale of the Wet Nurse Tree.” The distinguished painter Shigenobu and his wife, Oseki, have a new baby boy. Hanging around the neighborhood is a self-styled samurai, Namie, wearing a hat the size of a washtub, with a nasty smirk on his face. Shigenobu announces that he’s leaving town to create a dragon painting for a famous temple. Incredibly, he entrusts the care of his wife and son to Namie. The minute he’s gone, Namie plies the family servant, Shosuke, with drink and persuades him to kill his master. On the day that Shigenobu is to finish the painting, a crowd gathers at the temple. Shigenobu enters, looking peculiar. He fills in the final detail, the dragon’s eyes. Then he mounts the altar and—poof!—he vanishes. Shosuke has carried out his assignment: Shigenobu has become a ghost. Namie now persuades Oseki to marry him, but he’d prefer not to be encumbered with the child, so he tells Shosuke to take him to a waterfall and drown him. Once Shosuke leaves, Namie instructs his henchman, Sanji, to follow the servant and kill him after he has killed the baby.

By now, it’s clear that the primary virtue of “The Wet Nurse Tree” is not its plot, which you can barely follow. Another confounding factor is that the play is full of quick-changes. Nakamura Kankuro VI, the thirty-two-year-old star of the show (and a co-director of the troupe), plays three roles—Shigenobu, Shosuke, and Sanji—and much of the audience’s pleasure derives from his shape-shifting from one role to another within a given scene. Sometimes it’s as if Kankuro can’t walk behind a tree as one character without emerging on the other side as another. Remember when Shigenobu, or what looked like him, disappeared into the altar? Well, an instant afterward another man appeared in an adjoining room of the temple. “Sanji!” the people there cried. “We didn’t notice you here before!” That’s because he wasn’t there before.

At the waterfall (a real one—spectators in the front rows were given raincoats), Shosuke and Sanji battle to the death. While Kankuro plays one man, the other may be played by a second actor, who keeps his face averted. Or we are shown a big bush in which he is supposedly hiding. Then Kankuro switches. And, the minute the baby is tossed into the water, the actor’s third persona rejoins us. Shigenobu’s ghost, white-faced and dire, appears at the top of the waterfall, looking like Zeus, the bolt-thrower. He demands his son, who is still alive, and gets him. You look from one to the next of the three characters and ask yourself which of these costumes has Kankuro in it, and how long that situation is going to last.

The virtuosity is breathtaking: not just the speed of the costume changes (how do they switch the wigs so fast?) but the acting skills, the fact that Kankuro can speak like a servant one moment and like an immortal the next. It’s more than speaking, though. Much Kabuki movement is a kind of dance, rowdy or ceremonious or whatever is required. The actors hitch up their robes to show you what their legs are doing.

The virtuosity is not just a thrill in itself; it is the motor of comedy. Compared with some other forms of Japanese theatre—Noh, for example—Kabuki had humble beginnings. It was made by common people for common people. The story goes that in the early years of the seventeenth century a certain “shrine maiden,” Okuni, had a female troupe that gathered on a dry riverbed in Kyoto and staged shows described as “kabuku”—which, according to Heisei Nakamura-za’s program notes, is an archaic word meaning “tilted” but also implying “strange” or, perhaps, “risqué.”

These shows, which were hugely popular, were soon banned, as, later, were similar theatricals using boys as actors. It seems that both groups offered sexual services as well as dramatic entertainments, a typical pairing in vernacular theatre of the time. Since the mid-seventeenth century, Kabuki, with rare exceptions, has been performed only by adult males, handing down their skills from father to son. (The Nakamura Kabuki dynasty is nineteen generations old.) Women are played by onnagata, men who specialize in female roles. Oseki, Shigenobu’s wife, is played, with porcelain delicacy, by Nakamura Shichinosuke II, Kankuro’s younger brother, who directs the company with him.

Heisei Nakamura-za does not perform on riverbeds, but it does preserve something of Kabuki’s populist origins. According to the press release, Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII, the father of Kankuro and Shichinosuke, and the head of the troupe until his bitterly mourned death, from cancer, a year and a half ago (he was only fifty-seven), said that one of his goals was to strengthen “Kabuki’s happy-go-lucky, slapstick, naughty quality.” Hence, I believe, the disorderly plots and the razor-sharp stagecraft. Kanzaburo wanted to restore to Japanese audiences a comedy of awe and hilarity, a picture of life as variety and surprise. The closest analogy in American art is probably the Saturday-night movie. It is not irrelevant here that Kabuki is a commercial enterprise. Other forms of Japanese theatre, such as Noh and Bunraku, subsist on government funding. Kabuki lives on ticket sales.

It seems to me that Kanzaburo may have been a little too modern-minded: he inserted a lot of meta-theatre into his work. In this production of “The Wet Nurse Tree,” which is his (the play began its life as a story in a Tokyo newspaper, in 1889), a rather sinister tale is interrupted again and again, between scenes, by a bunch of rowdies coming out and telling us one thing or another. They’re the ones who distribute the raincoats, and they come back with mops and pails after the waterfall episode. They refer to the review—a favorable one—that they got in the Times. They express bewilderment over the plot of the play. “Plus, everyone’s name starts with an ‘S,’ ” one of them says. (In case you think Namie is an exception, it’s an alias. The character’s real name is Sasashige.)

These guys were cute, but I tired of them. I also think that Kanzaburo may have gone too far in ramping up the slapstick. When Shosuke and Sanji were engaged in what was supposed to be mortal combat, they looked a lot like a couple of kids having a water fight in a swimming pool. Again, it was fun for a while, but not for as long as it lasted, and, if fun was what this episode was about, how do you explain that scary ghost sitting at the top of the waterfall?

Still, I don’t feel quite right about second-guessing a man who was trying to keep a four-hundred-year-old theatrical form alive as a commercial enterprise. Also, he made wonderfully subtle decisions at certain points—the end, for example. The villainous Namie, of course, has to be eliminated (to our disgust, he is still married to the nice Oseki), but the person who gets to do the deed is Shigenobu’s child—who is now nine years old—and he uses a pretty silver sword that looks like something out of “The Nutcracker.” Down goes Namie, and what seems to be a flame-shaped holograph appears in the air—obviously Shigenobu’s spirit, avenged at last, and proud of his son. Everything here is just right: dignified and ritualistic—a dance—but also a little sweet, a little funny.