On stage, one of Japan’s biggest Kabuki stars changes roles in an instant. Offstage, it took decades

TOKYO (AP) — Onstage, Danjuro Ichikawa, one of many greatest stars of Japan’s Kabuki theater, is a virtuoso in switching roles.

In his newest manufacturing, he performs 13 elements, together with a princess, a sushi chef and a fox. He hobbles offstage as a feeble outdated man, then dashes again on moments later as a fierce warrior. He will get in a number of sword fights, dies tragically greater than as soon as, and takes flight on wires.

Offstage, he’s questioning if it’s time for the customarily inflexible position of a Kabuki star to alter.

The thirteenth man to bear the title Danjuro Ichikawa — which has been handed down between generations of Kabuki stars for over 300 years — he’s a family title in Japan, exhibiting up in adverts, films and TV exhibits.

Kabuki, an all-male theatrical custom that mixes music, dance and acrobatics, stays common, however Danjuro grants that it may be out of step with trendy tastes. Audiences accustomed to TikTok movies and streaming don’t at all times have the endurance for four-hour performances in archaic formal Japanese. Social distancing restrictions through the pandemic hit theaters onerous, and audiences are nonetheless coming again.

Danjuro has made efforts to replace Kabuki in “Hoshiawase Jusandan,” on the Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo via July 24, trimming longer scenes and modernizing some dialogue.

“Conventional tradition is likely to be onerous to comply with and get tiresome, however I hope folks could have enjoyable. The motion strikes rapidly as a result of I’m one particular person enjoying 13 roles,” Danjuro instructed The Related Press.

Dapper and tanned, Danjuro, 46, could be disarmingly playful for a well-known artist. Amid discussions of the way forward for stay efficiency, he gamely posed for pictures, placing the type of pose you’d see on the romantic lead of a manga comedian e book.

The all-male theatrical fashion could be intensely conservative, preserving lots of its traditions almost unchanged from the Edo court docket.

As we speak’s Danjuro took on the title in 2022, after going via earlier names he and all of the earlier Danjuros have gone via: Shinnosuke, after which Ebizo.

Coaching begins at childhood. When he was 20, about to go on stage for the primary time because the monk Benkei — a task that his father, grandfather and all of the Danjuros earlier than him had made well-known — the stress was so intense he ran away and spent the night time sleeping within the park. He did get again in time for the present.

As we speak’s Danjuro inherited the title from his father, Danjuro XII, who died in 2013 at 66 of leukemia.

The dying price him each a beloved guardian and a instructor he desperately want. At 35, he was nonetheless a novice by Kabuki requirements, an artform wherein stunning maidens are sometimes performed by octogenarian masters. He needed to flip to uncles and veterans from different households to be taught the craft, defying criticism from friends and even household who mentioned solely a Danjuro can train one other Danjuro.

However lately, critics say the thirteenth Danjuro resides as much as his title.

Regardless of the artwork’s agency dedication to custom, Danjuro says, Kabuki tales include common feelings that younger folks and foreigners who’re new to the style can join with.

In “Hoshiawase Jusandan,” he performs a fox who disguises himself as a warrior to stalk a court docket dancer who’s carrying a drum comprised of the disguise of his dad and mom.

When on the climax, a merciful samurai offers the fox the drum, Danjuro’s takes flight on wires, bouncing with pleasure over the group towards the third-floor balcony seats, accompanied by drums, flute and track.

The showy, considerably dated impact may seem like one thing out of a circus — nevertheless it sells a transferring scene that contrasts the human folly of battle and revenge with the straightforward love proven by an animal.

For all his fear, Danjuro says he trusts that the ability of human efficiency will survive.

He’s coaching his son Shinnosuke to take his place, and taking good care of his well being to make certain future generations of Shinnosukes have an opportunity to know their ancestor.

Sooner or later, Shinnosuke will grow to be Ebizo, and later, he’ll be Danjuro XIV.

“One should stay,” mentioned Danjuro. “That’s my duty.”

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Yuri Kageyama is on X: