A first-time encounter with (live) rakugo

It’s been nearly a month since I arrived, so I had a little break last week. Today’s post is all about comedy.

While in Tokyo two weekends ago, I also caught up with a colleague from Ireland and an expert on Japanese comedy whom I know from a symposium at the University of Salford. When he suggested we go and see some rakugo performance, a Japanese form of comedy, I immediately jumped at the opportunity because I have never seen it live, only recorded. Rakugo performances have been popular since Edo period, although the term is of a more modern making. It is essentially a form of storytelling in which the storyteller remains seated usually on a pillow (makura) and plays all the parts using specific gestures and only a fan and hand towel as props.

After having a great coffee and delicious cake at the nearby kissaten (coffee shop) called Kanda Brazil (highly recommended!), we navigated the back alleys of Tokyo’s Jimbōchō neighbourhood to Rakugo Café where the Sunday matinée was due to take place. We stumble upon a long queue of young people leading to the building where the café is supposed to be My rakugo guide notes these are not typical audiences who tend to be older. We quickly confirm that this is indeed a queue for a Japanese curry restaurant. We managed to get through to take a lift to the fifth floor. We collect the tickets (¥2500 = £15) and are given two snacks. At our seats a pack with leaflets for this and other shows is waiting for us. The encounter with contemporary Japanese theatre is also about theatre-going experience. There are not many seats in the space, perhaps no more than 30. In the middle of the raised stage, there is a pillow and a stand and to the right a board with ‘Rakugo Café’ sign which will display the name of the rakugoka (the rakugo storyteller). On the ceiling my guide points to coloured tenugui (hand towels) which are gifts from fans.

The programme of the day consists of four stories performed by two rakugoka (Japanese for rakugo storytellers). Two of these stories are usually chosen from a classic repertoire and two are original. Today’s programme features classic stories Aona (Green vegetables) and Dōran Kōsuke (Kosuke of Doran). There was an additional story which wasn’t announced in the programme. I won’t go into detail about the content of each performance because what I found most interesting is how it was presented. At the beginning of each story, the rakugoka would address the audience in some way or another and outline the background to the story. At the very start the audience and the performer are on an equal footing.  Therefore, audiences can concentrate more on what makes this performance different from other performances of the same story. Obviously, the original stories will be unfamiliar, but even then, everything is explained in much detail while engaging with the audiences. The performer even addressed both of us. I’d recall here Hans Thies-Lehmann (1999) and his ideas in relation to ‘cool fun’ trait of postdramatic theatre. He noted that the audiences are theatricalised as through performers’ use of parody, the audience becomes aware of the existence of other texts and can laugh the parody off. Similarly, rakugoka explains the story and audience laughs it off straight away and then when the actual storytelling begins, the audience can laugh again, but not because of the contents, but because of how the story is presented. This double effect of laughter is something that I am most interested in. While my PhD research is not on comedy, the appropriation of comedic styles by ‘serious’ theatre-makers as a way of critiquing society is something that I have keen interest in. Seeing theatre different from my specialisms is crucial for better understanding of my own research areas.

Earlier this year, at the symposium I mentioned earlier, I talked about Yasujirō Ozu’s film Good Morning (Ohayō) and otsu pantsu (colloquial Japanese for farting/scatology). I’m mentioning this because at this rakugo performance the fart jokes were again prominent in one of the stories. You’ll understand what I am discussing here better if you watch or at least skim through this video excerpt. In my presentation I noted how fart jokes are replacement for communication in line with David Bordwell’s idea, but I also argued that in the film the farts are artificially produced and that not every character in the film farts the same. Through its film-making strategies, Ozu’s film is therefore a subtle way of expressing the inability to navigate between two different cultures: Japanese and American. This was quite important societal issue in post-war Japan. In the rakugo story that I saw that Sunday afternoon, the jokes cantered around farting and scatology. However, it wasn’t the actual contents that were funny (the storyteller explained that it was based on his travels in India), but rather like in Ozu’s film, what made the whole performance amusing were the artificiality of the performer’s voice, the playfulness, the variations in pitch and fast-paced switching between characters.

Now that I am reflecting on this, I am thinking about how comedy usually does not travel well, unlike food that I mentioned before. What if instead of concentrating on the contents of the comedy, we train ourselves as audience members to concentrate on how it is being presented? Perhaps then we could understand comedy from other cultures better.