Word: onnagata
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Dustin Hoffman was a raw ingenue in Tootsie. Though only 33, Bando is already a master onnagata, a man who plays female roles in the centuries-old art of Kabuki. So apposite are his opposite-sex portrayals that he is the object of study by aspiring actresses and real-life geishas seeking to refine their feminine ways. "To act as an onnagata, "he says, "is to try to create an ideal; what I as a man would consider to be the ideal woman." Bando has also done non-Kabuki work, including heralded performances as Lady Macbeth and Desdemona...
...plays, and stories from the Bunraku puppet theater. Parts were passed down the generations as leading theatrical families established themselves. Today, when a Kabuki actor reaches a sufficient level of artistry, he is rewarded with the name of a distinguished ancestor. Leading Kabuki artists like Tamasaburo, 32, a brilliant onnagata, may achieve the popularity of rock stars. One of the most effective works in the tour repertory is Narukami (The Thunder God), first presented in 1684. A stirring tale somewhat resembling the biblical stories of Judith and Delilah, it recounts the bravery of Princess Kumo-no-Taema (Tamasaburo), who journeys...
Bestselling Author Yukio Mishima can write no wrong-at least in his native Japan. There he has briskly blended sensation and sensibility in 16 novels, 30 plays, and 80 short stories. Nine of these have now been issued in fluid, faultless English translation. In Onnagata, a dedicated Kabuki actor who plays only feminine roles lives his onstage art offstage as well, falls in love with a nasty new-wave director. In Patriotism, a dis graced lieutenant and his wife rapturously relax in a last voluptuous night together-and discover that after such pleasures, hara-kiri hurts even harder...
...particular details, or compare performances, or await dramatic or choreographic high points. Unlike previous Kabuki-type visitors to America, Grand Kabuki, as true Kabuki, consists of all-male casts. Though Kabuki actually originated around 1600 with a woman dancer, one of its great modern claims to distinction is its onnagata, or extraordinary female impersonators...
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