Okura Kyougen Theatre

I was being very cultural, yessss, i try to look educated :-). I was in theatre on Wednesday with my friend, as a Japanese guest theatre company made a performance in one of the biggest theatres of Budapest.

It was the Okura Kyougen Theatre Company from Tokyo and they performed two kyougen stories: Kazumo (Wrestling with a Mosquito) and Ne Ongyoku (Singing While Waying).
They also gave a little introduction to the history of this genre. They told this school of Kyougen is about 700 years old and by now only two families carry on the tradition: the Okura and Izumi families. It is a kind of drama, but a fun one, kind of a comedy, and always has some folklore-based theme. Also, the guy who was kind of a constant visible helper on-stage, spoke a bit about the technical parts too, about how the stage traditionally looks like and why.

Then they went into the stories. Boy, it was a great success! Although it was recited not simply in Japanese, but on in ancient Japanese dialect, we were still able to follow the story and understood it (I even understood some words and expressions). Good movements and gestures are so important! Bye the end of the whole event the whole audience was completely enliven. They got such a huge three cheers, which I have never seen before, although I can say I am a regular theatre-visitor - they were also stunned and were just standing ont he stage smiling and not being able to say a word, the cheer was so long and loud. So by the end they had to give three extra performances to satisfy the audience.
If you happen to have the chance to watch their performance, make sure you make it because it is just so cool!

Here you can find a very short description about Kyougen.

And here are some pictures about the performance.