My first 歌舞伎 performance

Attended Haewon's 歌舞伎 (Kabuki) debut last night. Titled 伊勢音頭戀寝刃 (Dancing with the sleeping blade), the play was apparently first acted in 1796 in Osaka. Being my first 歌舞伎 show and having only exposed to 歌舞伎 in 幕末機関説いろはにほへと, I had only a brief idea of what to expect.

The night started with a dance, followed by 2 a skit performances by some Australian college students. The dance seemed 涼みやハルヒ inspired while both skits were comedies. I didn't quite catch the final punchline of the first one while the second one kinda made me go (-_-") at the end. Nonetheless, the students definitely deserve huge credit for not only being able to memorize their lines in Japanese but also putting up a convincing performance as well.

伊勢音頭戀寝刃 on the other hand, totally blew my mind away. Besides the fact that Haewon's the female lead, the other casts put up a superb performance, especially the male lead. The plot is an extremely complex one but in short, it revolves around a prized sword, 青江下坂 (Aoeshimosaka), how it revealed true love and defeated evil.

The male lead (acted by a girl of course) - stunning performance. Hyeyoung and I were in awe at the amount of lines she had to memorize. Even for a Japanese, it was a lot!

A scene with most of the characters. Haewon's the one in orange.

The luckiest dude on Earth with his chio bu. He's the only cast to receive flowers. Wished his character had more development and he had more lines though. I don't think she really allow him to unleash his potential.

Hyeyoung, Haewon and Robert.

And like the opening day of any good performance, there's got to be an after-party, which we did, at my place. :)



Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly the most conventional kind of party. But we had fun. :)