See a single act of kabuki at the Kabukiza

The Kabukiza in Ginza is the main theatre of kabuki in Tokyo and the best-known stage of the form in Japan. A full programme there lasts more than four hours and is made up of about five separate acts, but the theatre also sells tickets for one act at a time, on the day, which makes an hour of kabuki easy to fit into a visit.

What the experience is

The present building reopened in 2013, designed by Kengo Kuma with an office tower behind it, and its front keeps the look of the theatre of 1925, with its curved gables and red lanterns. Programmes change every month, usually with a matinee and an evening performance, and each act is a complete piece: a dance, a scene from a history play or a domestic drama, about an hour long. Single-act tickets, hitomakumi, are sold at the theatre each day during a run, with sale times announced when the programme opens, and they are far cheaper than seats for the whole performance, which sit on the lower floors and are priced by their distance from the stage.

For visitors who do not speak Japanese, the theatre rents a simplified English audio guide with a synopsis and short commentary, for the full programme or for a single act, paid in cash. In the intervals, audiences eat bento boxes and drink sake in their seats, and Kobikicho Square, two floors below ground, sells bento, souvenirs and coffee to anyone, ticket or not.

Good to know

The Kabukiza connects directly to Higashi-ginza subway station. Programmes, performance times and single-act sale times are published monthly on Kabuki Web, the site of Shochiku, which runs the theatre; full-performance seats can be booked online through Shochiku’s multilingual ticket site or at the box office. Photography and phones are not allowed during the performance.

Sources: Shochiku, kabuki FAQ; GO TOKYO, Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau; Kabuki Web.