Katsura Sunshine: Rakugo

I wandered in to see Katsura Sunshine having witnessed that same afternoon an exceptional performance of Ink in the West End (which I will cover in another review). My general feelings towards this show I was going to see was, well Ink was wonderful so I’m not expecting anything better but hopefully this should still be quite good. My expectations were completely exceeded, I was so utterly delighted by the storytelling I witnessed, my evening theatre experience was every bit as good as my experience this afternoon.

I have never experienced this type of Japanese storytelling so did not know quite what to expect. I was afraid the humour might be different to what I was used to, that it might go over my head. I discovered my fears were groundless. Katsura Sunshine kindly began with an explanation of this type of storytelling and even gave us a brief lesson on speaking Japanese (which I must admit I have completely forgotten, picking up other languages is not my forte). He then embarked on a pair of dramatic tales with a few choice anecdotes thrown in for good effect. The tale of his acting as an interpreter for his master in New York particularly made me chuckle, who knew getting to the Statue of Liberty could be such a trial.

As a man who enjoys telling a witty story around the dinner table (and sometimes I even succeed in this) I can appreciate a real master of the craft. As everyone knows the best stories are not spontaneous, they are works of art, carefully honed to create just perfect timing. This was certainly the case here. His opening story featuring life after death and a discussion between the recently deceased and an afterlife bureaucrat, working through the paperwork to sort out a reincarnation, was tremendously witty. After a great deal of contemplation, discussion and dithering the deceased rejected came back as a mosquito, a tree and then a woman, before finally settling on becoming a very mediocre man again. The lengthy journey to this conclusion was charming.

The second tale was a delightful story of man trying to help his son do his homework, and being repeatedly stumped by the maths problems being brought home, (I rather enjoyed the problems, I did the first one in my head and then delusionally told myself I could work out the others, but I should be focusing on the show so shouldn’t try work them out after failing to do so after a couple of minutes). The opening question was how many turtles and cranes are there if they have 44 feet and 16 heads between them (although it was phrased far more poetically than this in the story). I rather enjoyed the common-sense answer of the father who couldn’t see why you couldn’t just count the cranes and turtles, rather than try and work out how many there were from the number of heads and feet. It is true that turtles are cranes are quite different from each other. His answer to the second maths question, which was ‘you should be good brothers’, was also I feel a wiser one then the actual numerical response. Once again, I was amused and charmed by the long and ridiculously complicated story.

It was a great evening and I was quite carried away by the storytelling. I may well return for tonight’s Friday the 13th special with new tales that I am sure will be every bit as fun as the ones tonight. If you want to see something rather unique, a lovely piece of old fashioned storytelling which will have you chortling away throughout, you really can’t go wrong seeing this show.