Kabuki Theatre (歌舞伎）

On Tuesday, I went to see Kabuki in Ginza. We saw two stories; Shunkyo Kagami Jishi (a dance performance) and Kirara Otomi (a theatre).

SHUNKYO KAGAMI JISHI (Young Yayoi and the Spirit of the Lion)
Kagami Jishi is one of the most important dances for onnagata female role specialists and is an audience favorite. The maidservant Yayoi performs an auspicious lion dance for the shogun in his opulent palace, but she gradually finds herself under the control of the lion spirit. In the second half of the dance, the lion spirit itself appears and performs its crazed dance among peonies and fluttering butterflies.

KIRARE OTOMI (Scarfaced Otomi)
The story of scarfaced Yosaburo is popular in kabuki. Yosaburo is the handsome young son of a wealthy family, but he falls in love with Otomi, the mistress of a gang boss and ends up being cut up and tossed overboard at sea, together with Otomi. He survives, terribly scarred, and becomes a criminal. He goes to blackmail a woman who seems to be kept by a wealthy merchant only to discover that it is Otomi. In this version, it is Otomi that is scarred.

P.s. Without an english translation, I would have been lost :P