Tradition With A Wry Twist

The Kanzaburo dynasty dates to the 18th century, when three major theaters dominated Edo (now Tokyo), including the original Nakamura-za, run by the first Nakamura Kanzaburo.

Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII made his stage debut at age 4, after learning from his father, who was just beginning to export Kabuki after the neglect and isolation of World War II. Nakamura Kanzaburo XVII first performed in the United States in 1960, when Japanese-American relations were frayed. "Love, love, love," legend says Greta Garbo telegraphed after the performance.

Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII began training each of his sons, Kantaro, 25, and Shichinosuke, 24, in music and dance when they were 2, and they made theatrical debuts at 5 and 4, respectively.

Throughout their childhoods, they were cajoled with sweets and disciplined to perform. Dinner conversation at home has always revolved around recent Kabuki performances.

"In my father's mind, that's all there is -- it's all about theater," says Kantaro outside his Lincoln Center dressing room. "He's crazy! Totally crazy."

"In addition to being my children's father, I am also their master," says Kanzaburo, during a separate interview. "Even in the home, the language is very formal."

The work "Renjishi," which the company performed last week in New York, is a parable of a lion who throws his cub off a cliff and will rear him only if he can climb back up and prove he is strong enough to survive.

Kanzaburo used to perform it with his father, playing the cub to his father's lion. Now he performs with both his sons, playing the lion to their cubs.

"There's a part where we stomp our feet and there's a specific timing of when we stomp," he says. "I learned that from my father, but the timing was very specific to us. We would listen to each other. It goes beyond something you can actually teach. My sons would stomp at the same moment, do the stomp at the exact same time -- it's in their bodies, in their DNA.

"My father used to perform it and I would follow. I would be watching my father's back. Now that my father's gone, I have taken his role and my sons watch my back."

In "Hokaibo," a thrilling, raunchy comedy the company performed last week in New York, the core of Kabuki was apparent in all its melodrama, gore and profanity, along with extreme beauty, oddness and savage luxe.

Kanzaburo's humorous English-language additions fit right in a play in which a man waves a stick below his robes to indicate an erection, and in which a face is sliced off from its head to dangle midair, red and gory.