Kabuki, one of Japan’s foremost traditional performing arts. One young man entered the world of Kabuki as an apprentice under Nakamura Shikan VIII after graduating high school. That man is 29-year-old Hashisaburo Nakamura. What kind of childhood and school days led to his entry into the world of Kabuki? What are his dreams and what must he overcome? We grabbed a couple of moments backstage to catch up with him.
What led you to become interested in Kabuki in the first place?
First of all, let me talk about how one enters the world of Kabuki. Just as there is a training school for comedians, there is also a school for Kabuki performers at the National Theatre in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. The typical apprenticeship is to study there for two or three years and then enter the system. My case, however, it is a little different from the traditional form. I belonged to an entertainment production company when I was a kid. I had my first stage experience when I was five years old and was invited to perform in Kabuki several times. During that time, I had several opportunities to work with my mentor, Nakamura Shikan (“Oyakata”), and I remember finding him to be very amiable. I was like, ‘I don’t want to take lessons, but if I can meet Hashinosuke (now Shikan), I’ll go to the Kabuki play.
And when I was a child, my mentor’s older brother (Nakamura Fukusuke IX) looked out for me. When I was selected to perform in a Kabuki play, I had to miss about a month of elementary school for training, and sometimes I had to arrive late or leave early. From the upper grades onward, it was honestly getting harder and harder to keep up with my studies. However, when I went to the dressing room, Fukusuke Waka-Danna guided and taught me like a teacher. Perhaps because of this, when I graduated from junior high school, I thought that in the future I wanted to be in the Kabuki world or a hairdresser who worked with hair.”
So it was a toss-up between a Kabuki actor or hairdresser?
That’s right. I was always a pretty quiet kid myself, so I didn’t really enjoy performing as a child actor that much. But since that time, I have always loved standing on a Kabuki stage and watching the expressions on the audience’s faces and the feeling of applause. I actually asked the master directly if I could become his apprentice before graduating junior high school, but ended up prioritizing higher education at that time and officially joined the company in 2012 after finishing high school.
You became an apprentice to Shikan Nakamura at the age of 18. However, what exactly does it mean to be an “apprentice to a Kabuki actor”?
I was in charge of everything from helping the master backstage, assisting the stage direction onstage and backstage, to being in charge of the stagehands and so on. For example, when I help the actors change clothes or apply makeup backstage, I also ask the costume and floor staff to be on hand and make adjustments so that there is no disruption to the stage.
Fascinating. But in your case, a decade has elapsed both as an apprentice and as a Kabuki actor
That’s right. When a Kabuki actor becomes an apprentice and has been trained for 10 years, and if the master grants permission, the actor is qualified to undergo a test called the “name examination” (nadai shiken). Passing this “nadai shiken” allows an actor to publicly declare anew that ‘I am a professional Kabuki actor.’ If you become a “nadai” actor, you will be given lines and speaking roles on stage, gaining further experience and moving up the ladder. Ten years of training have already passed, so I can take that test if my master allows me to. Right now, I’m practicing for it every day.
I would like to know a little bit about being on stage. What is actually like to perform up on stage?
This is just my take on it, but when I am on stage, I actually don’t think about acting too much. We talk about learning through practice in terms of becoming “indelibly ingrained”, and I think you can only stand in front of people when you have practiced repeatedly and let it soak into your body to the point that you can do all the performances even with your eyes closed. The stage is a place where you really have to believe in yourself. I think some approach their performance via a calm internal dialogue like this: ‘If I take two steps down the hanamichi (left side of the stage), I’ll be in this position. Next, hree steps back for that position.” But I get nervous and can’t remain so calm and collected. My mentor often reminds me that if I get nervous, it’s a sign that I haven’t practiced enough.
Finally, can you tell us about your future goals?
I don’t know how many years or how many decades it will be, but eventually I would like to play a major role with my mentor, and also with my mentor’s underlings. My bigger goal is to spread the entertainment that is Kabuki to folk all over the world. I want to mature into an actor who can play a part in that.
