Most kabuki plays have at their core a dramatic historical episode. Around this, there's generally a colorful, oft-times melodramatic and action-packed confection of intrigues, loyalties, romances, self-sacrifice and villainy founded on varying degrees of fact — or simply fashioned as pure fiction.
In "Sanzenryō Haru no Komahiki" ("The Three Thousand Ryō carried by a Horse for the New Year)," which is playing through January at the National Theatre in Tokyo, audiences are treated to a true classic of the genre, which weaves and careens its way through six engrossing acts performed over four hours with especially striking sets.
Premiered in Osaka in January 1794, this masterwork by the Kansai region's leading kabuki writer, Tatsuoka Mansaku, is being staged now by the Kabuki Producing Division of the National Theatre. In the principal role, of Oda Nobutaka, is Onoe Kikugoro, 71, the most distinguished living kabuki actor, who is for the eighth time supervising the entire cast in a National Theatre production — here including many actors he has tutored.