Today was 30°C with 90% humidity, hot and sticky, like being back in Ontario.
I wanted to see a rakugo performance while I was in Tokyo. Rakugo is a form of comedy/story telling where a single performer kneels on a cushion on the stage and tells a story. The only props used are a folding fan and a small towel. The story is usually humorous and involves multiple characters all of whom are played by the single performer. Each character is portrayed by a changes in voice and mannerisms. The performer never stands up and actions such as standing, sitting, running etc are implied using body movements. The performer is like a combination of actor, mime, comedian and clown. The performance usually ends with a joke or bad pun which the story has been leading up to. What would be called a punch line in western humour. The theater performance is reminiscent of American vaudeville stage in that there is a variety of end to end performances. In this case the rakugo performances are interspersed with other comedy and variety acts like magic and tumbling.
There are not many traditional rakugo venues left and the one that stood out for me was the Suhiro-Tei Jouseki in the Shinjuku 3-chome area. I found a web site for the theater and got an address but the various map programs that I tried either could not find it or put it in different places. Descriptions on the web stated that it was difficult to find. There also did not appear to be any way to book advance tickets. I decided to take a train to the Shinjuku-sanchome station with a stop to see Shinjuku along the way and see if I could find the theater and hopefully see a show. My train apps and Google Maps both showed what seemed to be an overly complex way to get there that involved multiple transfers and walking between stations. It seemed to me that I could do it by taking only 2 trains with 1 transfer so I set out on my own route to see what would happen. Amazingly it worked. It may have taken longer or cost more but with the magic train pass I can’t easily tell how much a trip costs. Weekend trains are pretty crowded but seem to be cooler than the weekday trains. Perhaps the A/C is turned up to encourage ridership.
Shinjuku was hot and very crowded. The main streets are crowded and feature the kind of large stores and products that don’t hold a lot of interest for me. I did wander through 1 large store along the way though. Labi is 9 floors of mostly electronics but also has appliances, food, discs and other related stuff. It had the highest ratio of staff to customers that I have every seen anywhere, almost 1 to 1 while I was there. There is a staff person at every display on some floors. All of them greet you and most try to sell you something. There is a constant background noise of ads and jingles via PA and almost every display had some sort of video with sound running on a screen. It was a cacophony.
Shinjuku Street Crossing
When I got off into the side streets the crowds thinned out some and the shops got more interesting. It was still about as busy as Christmas shopping in a mall though. I wandered by a few arcades and pachinko parlours that made Labi seem quiet by comparison. They were rock concert loud but not musical at all. The sound came from many machines all playing different tunes or making noise. It all added up to an ear splitting din. Again there were an amazing number of small places to eat just scattered everywhere.
I stopped in a magazine shop and had a look. There is a magazine for almost everything. Japan must be a great place to be a train geek. There were at least 20 magazine devoted to trains. There was even one for buses which feature specs, photos and layouts of the driver controls. This was a main stream shop and there were at least 10 copies on the shelf so it must be fairly popular. Who knew?
Turning a corner I came up behind someone dressed up in Sweet Lolita fashion. Long blonde curly wig, poofy skirt, lots of pink and bows, cutesy makeup and pulling a pink roller luggage. The only problem was that he was obviously a guy. I watched him cross path with a group of sharp dressed dudes. They were wary but obviously quite fascinated. Strange old world really idn’t it?
Once I had had my fill I made my way back to the station and continued on to Shinjuku-sanchome. I was lucky in that I choose the right exit and wandered down the right side street and found the theater within a few minutes. People were buying tickets and entering and after taking a few pictures outside I did the same. The theater was not very large and the main floor was almost sold out. There were large comfortable theater type seats in the middle section and tatami mats with cushions down each side. There was also a mezzanine. I was asked if I wanted up or down and I chose up and was directed to a stairway. Here I was asked to remove my shoes which I did and they were returned to me in a plastic bag which I took along. There were slippers (too small) but socks were OK too so up I went. There was only 1 other person sitting in the mezzanine who did a double take worthy of the stage as I came in. The mezzanine was mostly tatami mats with cushions with 2 rows of bench seats with cushions at the back. The mats were in rows with flat and sloping sections. You sat on the flat section on a cushion and stretched your legs out in front on another cushion on the sloped section. I choose to sit on a bench at the back as I wanted to try and take some photos.
A rakugo performance was on when I entered and the monologue was getting almost continuous laughs from the audience. It was a conversation/argument between a husband and wife and was over before I really figured out what was happening. Next up were 2 stand-up comedians. They did a rapid non-stop dialogue, really more like a monologue with interjections from the second guy about the problems with kids today which went over well with the mostly older audience. There were jokes about manga, anime, TV, video games etc. some of which I got but most of it when over my head. Next up was a quite elderly rakugo performer. He talked mostly about his or someone else’s ailments and managed to make having a medical procedure (an angiogram I think) sound hilarious. There were other bits involving sounds that the stomach makes that everyone else seems to find a lot funnier than I did.
The mezzanine was filling up with people most of whom did some variation on WTF! when they saw me as they entered. I started to feel a bit uncomfortable. I was surprised that most people brought a lunch with them and ate while they watched the show. The next rakugo performer did a conversation between a father and son. It was the usual generation gap / I don’t get any respect thing at first but got more serious when the son admitted to being in love with his sister. This went on for a while and it was obvious (for some reason that I missed) that they were trying to keep the mother from overhearing their conversation. The end came when after being outraged etc. the father told the son that it was OK to marry his sister. The son exclaimed “But she is my sister!” and the father replied “Father may be her father but he is not your father.” (I think) This brought the house down. The next guy up was a stand-up comic who I did not really understand but he did do some interesting physical comedy. It’s funny that the English term stand-up comic which comes from standing up in front of an audience works here as well and also adds another level of meaning.
I liked rakugo but my enjoyment was limited by my language skills. Live comedy works very well in this small size of theater. The performer kneeling is at about eye level with the seated crowd so there seems to be more of a connection between performer and audience. I hope that rakugo continues to thrive and I give it another go when my language skills are better.
After watching all those other people eat I was hungry and went looking for food when I left. There was certainly lots to choose from, Turkish, Thai, Italian and of course Japanese. I went with ramen again and was not disappointed. I did manage to eat the whole bowl but I was stuffed afterwards. Pretty tasty.
I took a different route back and transferred trains in Akihabara. I did a quick trip outside the station for a look around and found it crazy busy compared to during the week. Lots of cosplay and other wacky stuff happening.
I caught the Tsukuba (sounds like SCUBA) Express home and stopped at the grocery store to buy some supper. Fruit here is a crazy price. I bought an apple which while nice and large cost me about $1.75. It was OK but far from the best apple that I have eaten. Other fruit seemed equally as expensive so I don’t think that I was just buying the expensive imported stuff.
Other Random Stuff
-Little hooks beside the urinals to hang your umbrella from.
-Parking enforcement for bicycles.