Rakugo

Rakugo Report

Astri Nur Faizah

11998001

It was my first time seeing a real typical Japanese comedy performance. I did not know before that one-man-show could be very amusing but this one convinced me.

Rakugo is a sit-down comedy where a performer on his knees performs a monologue ending with skillfully delivered punch lines called ochi (落ち). Professional rakugo storytellers are called rakugoka (落語家) or hanashika (話家) (taken from http://www.jref.com/glossary/rakugo.shtml).

Rakugo can be best described as Japanese sit-down comedy of comic story telling. Just as there is stand-up comedy in the western countries, there is sit-down comedy in Japan. Most obviously, the difference is that the performer sits on his knees when he performs.

The performer wears traditional formal Japanese clothes (Kimono) and sometimes wears a pair of long wide pants (Hakama) and/or a formal jacket (Haori).The performer is usually equipped with a fan (Sensu) and hand towel (Tenugui). These items help the performer express and act out the story. For example, the fan can be chopsticks, scissors, cigarettes, pipe, or pen. The towel could be a book, bills, or an actual towel. The performer sits on a small mattress, dressed in his Kimono and acts out the whole story by himself.

“It is verbal art and a humorous entertainment at the same time. It’s not just a series of jokes, in discrete segments; it’s a continuous story. Rakugo is interesting because when you think about Japanese culture you don’t think about humor—and rakugo is all about humor” (taken from http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/news/japanese_standup.htm).

I think the hardest part is the conversation changes. There were many characters in the story but only one performer. Therefore, he must be able play the role of each distinct character. There are always several characters in a Rakugo story. The performers play each character by changing voice, facial expression, mannerisms, speech, etc.. In most cases the characters have strong stereotypical personalities and characteristics so that as the performer switches from one character to another the audience readily detects the change.

Rakugo is a unique form of story-telling which includes comedy and play as well as art. It is important to the Japanese people that the style, structure and rich tradition of Rakugo be passed on to succeeding generations. Even though for foreigners it was quite hard to understand stories which are told in Japanese language, we still had it fun when watching rakugo in English version. Still I consider Japanese version is funnier because there are many typical-Japanese-jokes.

Example of rakugo-on-stage