Kabuki

Kabuki is a high-stylized Japanese dance-drama that uses elaborate make-up worn by the performers. The word kabuki comes from the verb kabuku which means "out of the ordinary" to translate to kabuki as being "avant-garde" theatre. A kabuki stage consists of a hanamichi which is the walkway that extends into the audience for performers to make dramatic entrances and exits. The walkway is not only for entrances and exits, but important scenes are also performed on the hanamichi.

Our assignment was to create the sequel for The Zen Substitute. This play was about how Lord Ukyo lied to Lady Tamanoi (Ukyo's wife) about visiting Hanako (his girlfriend). He told Lady Tamanoi that he was meditating, but instead asked his servant, Taro, to stand in his place while he went to visit Hanako. We decided to set the sequel in a geisha house where Lady Tamanoi also secretly worked. Because Hanako had contracted the flu, Lord Ukyo was given a different geisha which happened to be Lady Tamanoi. Rather than have our main characters wear the make-up, all the actors/performers should have worn the make-up. One critique was that our chorus needed to stay in character because when one person broke character the rest of our cast broke character.