While kabuki has stayed popular into the modern age, its narratives are still almost universally set in the samurai era, a long time ago. A major exception is coming soon, though, with a kabuki play set a long, long time ago.
Later this month a "Star Wars" kabuki play will be held in Tokyo, and if you’re worried it’s going to be some half-effort fan skit, think again. The star of the show is none other than Ichikawa Ebizo, one of Japan’s most popular kabuki actors and an absolute A-list Japanese entertainment industry icon. Despite the unexpected source material for his latest project, Ichikawa himself is an outspoken "Star Wars" fan, and is also serving as supervisor for "Star Wars Kabuki."
“'Star Wars Kabuki' will depict the love and loss felt by the Skywalker family over the past 40-plus years,” promises Ichikawa, who has himself become a symbol of single fatherhood in Japan as he raises two children (including an aspiring kabuki actor son) following the loss of his wife, newscaster Mao Kobayashi, to breast cancer at the age of 34. Ichikawa will be playing a character who is part of the Skywalker bloodline, but when he takes the stage it won’t be as Luke or Darth Vader, but as deeply troubled third-generation Force-user Kylo Ren.
Officially being titled "Star Wars Kabuki-Rennosuke Hikarigatana Sanbon" ("Star Wars Kabuki-Ren and Three Light Sabers"), the play is scheduled to be a one-night-only performance, to be held on Nov 28 at a yet unannounced theater in Tokyo, just eight days before the opening of the kabuki adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind."
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15 Comments
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Samit Basu
So which actor is cross-dressing as Rey in this Kabuki play?
This is a Kabuki play and women are banned on stage, after all.
oldman_13
Fitting, since George Lucas ripped off Akira Kurosawa for his original Star Wars movie.
fa477279
Cultural appropriation!! wha wha kimono wha!! It can go both ways, you see.
Joe Blow
This could actually be cool, and will likely be much better than the new SW films.
iradickle
LOL, sad but true.
Patricia Yarrow
Only one night?
K3PO
"Chubaka-san, put the Mitsubishi Falcon into hyperdrive! Hayaku onegai!
3RENSHO
The same kabuki 'actor' (nick-named 'The Prince of Kabuki') whom, in a drunken early-morning IZAKAYA orgy, ordered a minor Yakuza bosozoku motorcycle gang Chinpira to drink tequila out of a dirty ashtray? And the resulting fight left him hospitalized? Yeah, the same guy. How thin the veneer of civility! It is very fortunate for him that Ichikawa Ebizo XI has a precoscious offspring to save his image and preserve his bloodline.
Arrrgh-Type
Serious question- with anything Kabuki, it seems like it's always Ebizo, Ebizo, Ebizo. Why? I can't think of any other cultural or entertainment field that seems to be so dominated by one person. Are there really that few famous kabuki families? Or is he really particularly talented? Or just good at PR? Or a combination of all of the above?
starpunk
In many ways SW films are like modern Shakespeare, and there's many ways that is done. Kabuki Star Wars - an innovative idea! That's culture, baby!
starpunk
Culture.
Toasted Heretic
Sounds about right to me, given that Japanese culture has such an influence on the films. I seem to recall a manga version of Star Wars some years back...
Ganbare Japan!
This will be unbelievable! If anyone can make Star Wars into a Kabuki play, its Ebizo, a Japanese "National Living Treasure". He is a genius.
starpunk
Once again, it's just the same way that Shakespeare is reenacted and interpreted. Also in rock'n'roll, the Who's 'Tommy' and Green Day's 'American Idiot' have been made into film and Broadway performances. And 'The Wall' by Pink Floyd has also been made into a movie in 1982 and recently a Broadway performance and other forms of theater too.
That's the arts for you.