Celebrities live in goldfish bowls, but some goldfish bowls are roomier than others. The amount of leeway the public is willing to allow a famous person in terms of objectionable behavior depends on the nature of that person's fame and his or her own understanding of the seriousness of the trespass. Michael Jackson can't catch a break from the general public because he seems unreasonably stubborn about refusing to acknowledge the bizarre image he projects.

The goldfish bowl that young kabuki star Shichinosuke Nakamura lives in is more cramped than most, not because he is in constant view, but because his public behavior is already bound by qualities ascribed to his gei (art). He is expected to be poised, polite and punctilious, so when, last weekend, it was reported that he struck a policeman who stopped him in the wee hours for refusing to pay a taxi fare, the embarrassment all around was acute.

It was also ironic, though not in the usual celebrity-caught-with-his-pants-down way. The misdemeanor occurred the morning after his father, Kankuro, was honored with a party to celebrate his assumption of his late father's kabuki name, Kanzaburo, which will officially take effect in March. An event related to a timeworn ritual devolved over the course of a night into slapstick.