Week 2: Kabuki Theatre

http://www.artelino.com/articles/kabuki_theater.asp

This article explains how Kabuki theater was initiated by a woman, although women weren't allowed to perform in it. Therefore young boys would have to act as the women and use their falsetto voices. Also young boys were used because they were smaller and could play the roles better. Eventually during the Meiji period women were going to be allowed back into the theater but then the roles of women would look to real, and that would ruin the purpose of Kabuki which is supposed to be artifice. Kabuki is mainly dancing so the performers must undergo extensive training. Kabuki is different than I thought because the seating was completely different, they had to sit in boxes with cushions on the floor. Also in Kabuki they had denied women the right to perform because they would look too "real", which seems different and weird to me because nowadays in theater the cast is chosen on who actually plays the part the best and is most real in that part. I don't think I would've enjoyed watching original Kabuki theatre in ancient Japan because most of their plays are historical and that would bore me.