People Persons

The next morning, we were relieved to be finished with our hardest task at Pasar, though that relief was tempered slightly by our disappointment at the disappearing audience.

“A lot of our friends spent 10, 12 hours driving here yesterday from Wakayama or further,” Natsu explained.  “They all fell asleep early.”

“But you can perform again on Friday if you want to,” said Aki in a rare show of energy.  We agreed, excited, and, figuring we’d practiced enough by that point, threw ourselves into enjoying the festival.  Over the next week, we overcame our shyness enough to become quite close to some of the Pasar family and friends:

There was Mayumi, proprietress of "Mayumi's Miracle Cafe," with an unbelievable laugh and a cigarettey voice.  The rumors said she had worked in the fashion industry for 30 years before quitting to run a vegan cafe.  When we parted ways, we wondered if we would meet again, and she told us, "Maybe we will.  Every minute, every second...is a miracle!" and roared with laughter.

Shuuichi.  Tatted up, giant holes in his ears that he would sometimes use to transport cigarettes, carrying around a hollowed-out gourd full of alcohol, he would frequently just bend over or list to one side for a few minutes.  I thought he might be narcoleptic, but then I saw him driving a car.  He did talk to me at length about his life -- I caught very little of it, but it seems he was a hikkikomori, a shut-in, for twelve years.  Now he spends his time trying to experience as much as he can of life.  Rumor has it he did some of his tattoos himself while locked away in his house.

This dude came by himself and danced like nobody has danced before, usually while wearing outrageous masks or swinging around kites that he made out of cut-up magazines.  Oh, and he's just as blurry in real life.

Yoko and little Haru-kun, sporting the official festival garb.

Our worries about filling our idle time fizzled quickly: from our first cup of coffee at 8 a.m., we were put to work kneading pizza dough, lighting the fire for the brick oven, baking and selling pizzas, helping Maya in the communal kitchen, carrying heavy objects to the stage and back.  When we had a moment to breathe, we were asked to give the other WWOOFers a break and work the bar.

“Hey, you can’t come back here,” the Austrian told us when we first fetched someone a beer.

“What?” I asked, certain that I had just misheard over the band.  But no, he explained, the bar area was only for staff, and Jenn and I weren’t allowed back there.  In an uncharacteristic disregard for confrontation, I explained to him in small words that we were part of the staff, that we were here to help at Pasar, and Natsu herself told us to take over the bar.  He spent the next few hours offering elaborate apologies and bowing in what sure looked like a patronizing manner.

In truth, I liked being a bartender.  It was one of the few tasks that needed doing that didn’t require a higher level of Japanese or knowledge of the inner workings of Pasar Moon.  I got to be right at the heart of the party -- hell, after a couple of Pasar mojitos, I fancied myself the most indispensable part of the party -- and I had an excuse to interact with all of the merrymakers.  Plus, at the bar, we had the best seat in the house:

“That’s now how you make a mojito,” the Austrian told me, his lip curled in a sneer, his eyes rolling like pinballs.  I pretended not to hear him, but at last I thanked him for the help and got him to teach me how to properly pour one.

Then it was, “You have to tip the glass when you pour the beer.”  And, still later, “You opened the valve on the keg too much, let me fix it for you.”  When he disappeared after pouring three cups of pure foam, I adjusted it back.

Of course, if we were part of the Pasar staff, we may not have acted like it the whole time.  After Aki told us that, despite his earlier offer, Dragon Room presenters wouldn’t be receiving envelopes full of dead presidents to perform, we were informed that we would still be getting free admission to the festival and free food.  Unfortunately, meals at Pasar, especially during festival time, are a very sporadic thing.  Often we would be so busy at the pizza oven that we wouldn't think to eat anything until two or three in the afternoon.  With no staff meal obviously forthcoming, we would buy some food from one of the many food stalls, only to be told half an hour later that the staff's free lunch was ready.

Still, there are fates worse than a piping-hot Pasar Burger.

At least the music was great.  The live performances spanned from trippy looped acoustic guitars to reggae to punk to things we’d never heard before.  One of Pasar’s regulars, supposedly the 40th generation priest at the local Shinto shrine, took the stage to play something extremely trippy that he called “space rock.”  The DJs killed it, too, playing a great deal of Afrobeat and funk and generally keeping the crowd in a dancing mood: one proud dad bounced his little daughter on his shoulders to the sounds of “Rapper’s Delight,” big old grins on both their faces.  We bopped our heads and danced in place by the pizza oven or at the bar while the Austrian sulked or bored the other WWOOFer to tears.

Taka watched a kid use a piece of bamboo as a guitar to play along with the band.  He drilled a couple of holes in it and attached a shoulder strap.  The kid proceeded to completely shred on his new instrument.

On Friday night, before performing at the acoustic showcase that would close out the evening, we were treated to a burst of traditional Japanese culture.  First, a duo dressed in kimonos took the outdoor stage and led the crowd in bon-odori, the standard Japanese festival dance.  There’s really no analogue for it in America; it’s a seasonal activity that everyone in the country is very familiar with, so maybe the best comparison would be like singing Christmas carols.  But, y'know, dancing.  The crowd went nuts, every man, woman, child and dog gleefully performing the dance moves that are so remedial they’re almost offensive.

Then, the central courtyard of Pasar was transformed into a stage for the kagura, a traditional Japanese performance art.  It was described to me as a “snake dance” or “warrior dance,” but what it turned out to be was an elaborately staged pantomime.  The first act had a masked figure engage in a fishing exhibition that had him flinging hard candy to the crowd and snookering volunteers to come and help him catch papier-mache fish.  He brought our young American friend up, and she performed her duties admirably (though she did break his fishing pole), apparently oblivious to the fact that the young, blonde American invited to participate in an ancient ritual under the full moon is pretty much doomed.

The second act brought the promised snakes, which were actually dragons for some reason.  The protagonist, whose words were muffled through his mask and who gasped for air in between lines, was evidently some sort of mustachioed dragon-slayer, much like Super Mario.  The three dragons were rendered with terrifying detail, and I gasped with the rest of the audience when they had the protagonist tangled in their deadly coils.  The story ended on a happy note, though, with the dragons’ heads chopped off and tossed into the crowd.

Luckily, we didn’t have to follow the dramatized execution: before we took the stage again in the Dragon Room, there was a long performance by a very diverse group of musicians, including hula dancers and a bongo player who was the spitting image of Snoop Dogg (but, y’know, Japanese).  The house was still fairly full when Jenny Dreadful (that’s us) started to perform, and with only fifteen or so minutes to play, we did some of our old favorites: “You Made the Night Too Long,” “Bei Mir Bist du Schoen,” “Feelin’ Good,” and “I Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl.”  The audience loved it, and we felt immediately vindicated.  We came to Japan to do exactly this, and how ‘bout that, we killed it!  The final performance by a tall, mohawked didgeridoo player brought a satisfying end to the evening.  Jenny Dreadful received about 1000 yen in tips, 500 of which we gave to the didgeridooist.

Saturday came, the penultimate day of the festival.  Everything had settled into a nice, comfortable groove: coffee, kitchen duties, making pizza, breakfast at 2 p.m.  In the evening, when Jenn went to lie down on the tent for awhile, I went to the bar to offer the WWOOFers a break.

“Hey, Harry!” the Austrian greeted me.  “Tequila?”  He produced the bottle and poured a couple of shots, plus one for Mayumi.

“Hey, thanks,” I said cautiously.  “You buying?”

“Nah, I don’t have any money,” he replied.

Mayumi and I exchanged a look.  “I can keep a secret,” she said, then burst into laughter.

The Austrian produced the salt and announced in a bizarre fake accent even more affected than his own, “Hai, Pablo Escobar especial...co-caine!”  He looked at us expectantly.  Mayumi and I laughed, though I think hers may have been genuine.  We downed our shots, regretting that the limes had sold out the night before, and all high-fived.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” said the other WWOOFer in a low voice.  Before I could get a chance to ask her any questions, I heard a booming “Tequila!” followed by a raucous cheer.  Behind me, the Austrian was pouring another round of gratis tequila shots.

“Yeah, he’s been doing that for awhile now,” she told me, rubbing her eyes.  I eyed the Austrian, who cheersed with a half dozen roaring drunk musicians (including last night's didgeridooist) and offered them "Pablo Escobar especial...co-caine" to a barrage of laughter.

"Don't worry," I told her with the false bravado of speaking to a 17-year-old, "I've got this."

Dutifully, I took the bar next to the Austrian and slapped him on the back.  "Hey," I began.  "Hey," this time in a friendly manner, as one would address his best buddy who also happens to be haplessly drunk.  "I've got it, man, you can take a break."

"No, no, it's good, I...I work."  His English was worse than I remembered, and if he was this out of it, I doubted my ability to peacefully convince him to leave.  We worked side by side, though hardly together, through the final band of the evening.  I poured a few more rounds of tequila for some of the musicians -- apparently he had given them a taste for the stuff.  Eventually he wandered off once he realized he wouldn't be getting any more free drinks, and I kept to my work cheerfully.

Around eleven o'clock, when the last band had wrapped up, the didgeridooist assembled his friends to do another shot of tequila.  I poured four, then five, then eventually seven as more friends wandered up.  I hadn't congratulated the tall man for his excellent performance on the didgeridoo the night before, but I held my tongue when I saw how much he was listing from side to side.  He met my eyes and gave me some sour look I couldn't read, so I went back to my work.  When I passed out the shots and the salt, the musicians raised their cups, cheersed, and downed their tequila with gusto.  Except for the didgeridooist, who pointed at my chest, slurred something beyond my Japanese ability, then reached his long arm across the bar and poured his tequila all down the front of my shirt.  Pinned by the bar as I was, I had no room to do anything but take it, the cold liquor wetting my clothes.

I lacked the vocabulary to take any action.  "Why did you do that," for instance, or "what the hell did you do that for?"  What I did manage was a polite, "Oh, no, you spilled your drink!"  The didgeridooist reeled back a bit, not averting his dark eyes from mine.  His friends started to disappear, though one or two of them said something quiet to him.

"You say somethin'?" he barked at me, or at least that's how I understood it.  I denied saying anything, collected the empty shot glasses, and turned my back to him, trying to keep tears from welling up.  He wandered off at some point, and I held it together long enough to close the bar promptly at midnight and collapse in the tent.  I heard later that Taka reopened the bar not long after and the party, including the Austrian and the didgeridooist, kept the fun going until five in the morning.

I wish I understood what was going through the didgeridooist's head (or, y'know, coming out of his mouth).  I've never had the experience of esteem and admiration for someone turning to a feeling of betrayal.  At least, not so quickly.  Or wetly.  Maybe I somehow gave offense without realizing it.  Maybe he was just a mean drunk.  Probably that one.  He evaded my eyes for the rest of the festival, either because he felt shame about what he did or, not remembering, he disliked me enough to avoid me.

Whatever the reason, I tried not to think anything bad about Pasar, even as I saw Pasar's friends and staff hang out with this guy into the wee hours.  This may have been an ugly incident, but peace and love were still the words at Pasar, and 99% of the people at the festival immediately became my favorite people in the world.

The Chronicle of Punch-sama and Judy-hime

Last week, as I'm sure you know, was Culture Day, during which we engaged in all the usual Culture Day activities (still waiting on some of those Culture Day cards to arrive, guys, no rush). I believe the theme of this year's Culture Day was...Culture. So, aside from the typical, run-of-the-mill Culture Day BBQ, Culture Day Flower Viewing, Culture Day Bagel Bake-Off, and Culture Day Bowling Marathon, we also attended a performance at Osaka's National Bunraku Theater for the third time.

What is bunraku? Come on, don't play that game. Fine, if you want to do it this way: bunraku is traditional Japanese puppet theater, developed in Osaka in the 17th century and closely tied to the theatrical traditions of kabuki.


No, not that kind of puppet.


No, think paler, creepier, more...y'know, Japanese-looking.


Agh! No!


There we go. It's generally a good time, though the show does require some intimate knowledge of Japanese theatrical conventions, mythology, geography, history, and domestic culture to understand. Oh yeah, and classical Japanese. Or, alternatively, you can fork over 600 yen for an earphone guide. Since we only had a week to prepare to go to this show rather than the requisite 40 years it would take to learn all of that, we paid up.

Bunraku is fun times, all said. Each puppet is worked by three puppeteers, all of whom appear on stage covered entirely in black. At first, it seems like the stage is crowded with people playing with dolls, but by the end it's easy to ignore the puppeteers entirely and see the puppets as the only figures on stage (somewhere in between it's kind of like the puppets are being attacked by ninjas). The whole thing is narrated by a single reader (swapped out with other readers between scenes) who sings every character's lines from behind a podium; the effect, though powerful, made me wistful for when I too used to play with action figures and do the voices myself. There was no showmanship like drinking glasses of water or whatnot, though at one point a puppet tossed something to another puppet across the stage to riotous applause. Also, there was a samurai duel on the beach that moved progressively closer, represented by using increasingly larger puppets. CGI, Schmee-GI.

I'm not really sure what I can tell you about the story of the plays we saw: reading the plot summary in the program, things seem pretty action-packed, with plenty of daring sword thefts, murder-suicide pacts, beheadings, samurai showdowns, and conspiracies...also, at one point a spy masquerading as an old stone mason kills a samurai by throwing a chisel across stage (sadly, this was accomplished by the performers by having the puppet being hit by an apparently invisible chisel, then falling over). As is the case with most Japanese theater, though, these deceptively simple set pieces are filled out with pausing for every character to stop and describe exactly how they're feeling at any given moment, how sad something makes them, how sad they are about what happened in the last scene, and occasionally how sad they are at the transient nature of existence or something.

I wish I could tell you a little more about the plot of the first play, if only to demonstrate just how long these damn things can be, but I'll keep it to the interesting (non-beheading) part that gave me the most pause: at the end of a lengthy duel between samurai of two rival clans and hashing out the repercussions of that duel, it turns out the protagonist and his son conspired for the son to switch places with the illegitimate son of the Emperor so the hero could kill his son and get the Emperor's son smuggled off to safety. It's never really established how any of the characters know that this young samurai is the (again, illegitimate) Prince or why some characters really care about that and others don't, but apparently it was completely necessary for our hero to sacrifice his beloved son to save the Prince even when nobody thought that was important before head-chopping-time. The Japanese teacher we saw the show with said she understood that part, even if she didn't think she could ever do such a thing. Go fig.

I'll leave you with this last little tidbit: the last play of the evening was translated as "The Red-Hot Love of the Greengrocer's Daughter." Sadly, the title proved to be the most exciting part of the story.

Take Me Out

The air conditioner was rattling away at full tilt in Star Room. A gaggle of eager-faced elementary schoolers sat before us (well, eager-faced except for the twins, who were babbling excitedly to each other as usual, and for Hinata, who was crouched under a table eating paper as usual).

"OK, guys, when you go to Kochien to see the Hanshin Tigers play, and you get hungry, what do you eat?" I ask, miming with one hand, green whiteboard marker clutched in the other. As always, Aimi is the first to shout, "I know!" "Yakisoba!" she volunteered. I nodded and wrote it on the board. More hands shot up: "Osushi!" "Edamame!" "Obento!" "Popcorn!" I praised them for volunteering, then proceeded to describe the weird stuff we eat at games in the States to cries of "Eeeeee?!" And I didn't even know where to start with Dippin' Dots.

Baseball day at Harumidai Kindergarten. We had them make pennants for imaginary teams like Fire and Witches, then tried to teach them the words to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (lyrics came from a faulty online version with weird, un-American perversions like "EVER get back" and an unpluralized form of "Cracker Jacks"). Fortunately, I knew something of where to start comparing the American game to what the kids would be familiar with. The week before, I had
been to see the Hanshin Tigers under the most Japanese circumstances possible: a work-mandated employee motivation outing.

Osaka is absolutely crazy about the Hanshin Tigers. Seriously. Now, Osaka does have another team, the Orix Buffaloes, but I've never heard anyone express even the slightest opinion about them. I'm not too strong on my sports analogies, but I guess they're like the White Sox of Japan? Or, to use something I'm a little more confident in, if the Tigers are Superman, the Buffaloes are Aquaman. To truly understand Osaka's degree of fanaticism over the Tigers, you have to know about the Curse of the Colonel. Truly, this is a land of mysticism and intrigue.

My co-workers and I were treated to only the finest: the cheapest, farthest seats available, in the last row behind 3rd base. Fortunately, this was also the home of the professional fans, the ones who make it to every game and whose monthly budget comprises tickets, beer, memorabilia, more beer, and rent. We gaijin became the sort of beloved mascots of the section: one of the Tigers' biggest fans (in terms of square volume) took it upon himself to enthusiastically photobomb us. Picture unavailable.

Now, I can't give you much info on how the game itself went because of an interesting quirk of Japanese-rules baseball: they let you bring your own food and beer into the park. Of course, there was one unbreakable edict of drinking at the ballpark: no matter what you do, you must not bring shame upon the hallowed grounds of Kochien by carrying glass or aluminum into the stadium. Hence, PET bottle beer:

My team spirit quickly grew three sizes. To illustrate the effect of beer on Harry's degree of caring about baseball before:

...and after:

Pretty much all I can bring you about the game is that every player has their own song and chant, and instead of clapping your hands like some oafish barbarian, we use these:

And, as is the custom, at various points in the game this happened:

Then, inexplicably, I started to hallucinate returning to a trippy mystical all-womb.

Traditional Japanese Culture. In the Butt.

Yes, as alluded to in yesterday's dispatch, I, Harry Althoff, am once more among the ranks of the Working. I don't really have too many details yet, but I can tell you that I will be teaching English at a kindergarten. Yes, ol' Harry's comin' up in the world!

At this rate, I'll be teaching English to babies by this May, and by September I can retire, I guess.

The interview process was considerably mellower than at Berlitz; I was interviewed by two youngish American guys -- wearing a near-complete Luigi costume and a basic Old Navy get-up respectively -- and a very smiley Japanese woman who was cracking up over the two Americans the whole time. They spoke to me in the Sun Room (just down the hall from Acorn Room and Grapes Room), where I planted my be-suited butt in the tiniest, most frail-looking chair in the world. The whole thing had a kind of Alice in Wonderland vibe, really.

They let me know last Friday that, though it's still tentative, I've got the job! No idea what my hours or commitments will be at all, but they'll let me know on my first day (not ideal, but better than finding out about that stuff on the second or third day). I've been told that the kids' enthusiasm is really infectious (speaking of, I heard one of the teachers carefully explain to some students the importance of hand-washing...they repeated "no in-flu-en-za" after him). I was also asked in a phone interview if I had any real problems with being hit by small plastic shovels or being called a doo-doo head. Hey, every occupation has its hazards, right? As long as they don't have cell phones.

The one thing I am worried about is a traditional bit of Japanese culture called "kancho," pictured in yesterday's blog post, which is very common with younger children. Because it's fun, here's another picture:

I don't think "fun" means the same thing in Japanese, actually.

As you might be able to guess, "kancho" is something that kids do to each other and to slow-moving grownups: they...well, they jam their fingers into a rather delicate area and yell "kan-CHO!" I can't imagine why we don't have a word for this in English...oh, wait, we do: "sexual assault." Culturiffic!

To sum up: Harry's career has just gone from this...


...to this:


Sweet deal.

Happy Bean-Related Winter Holiday!

Happy Setsubun! As I'm sure you know, today is the day when all of Japan welcomes the new season (which I can only assume is Winter, Pt. 2) by eating sushi rolls and throwing beans at each other. You knew that, right? I mean, duh.

It's an occasion for great festivity, no different from the equally weird-ass Roman Feast of the Lemures. Family members put on demon masks and are pelted with hard, inedible beans by their relatives who chant rituallistically to drive out the demons and usher in the good luck. And it's not creepy at all!

Not even a little.

I'm celebrating by taking the day...well, actually, I do still have to work today. Two jobs. Yes, even though Japan has about three National Holidays per month, Bean-Throwing-Demon Day is considered of lower national import than Sports and Leisure Day. But I guess I'm observing it by working even less hard than I usually do. Also, I got a bag full of myserious objects from the school, some wrapped in plastic, most bean-shaped. I would try my luck at eating one but for the fact that I overheard two of the teachers discussing the contents of their identical bags (and for once, the meaning was clear enough that I could follow the conversation):

Teacher 1, holding up a red Jawbreaker-shaped object: "Hey, can you eat this thing?"
Teacher 2: "I don't know. I only ate the candies shaped like Anpanman."
Teachers 1 and 2: (Laughter)

So from all of us here in the Gaijin Patrol, may your demons go out and your luck go in. Beans on earth, etc.

Legend of the 47 Ronin and All their Friends and Relatives and Acquaintances, Parts VII-XI

We're all about the culture over here in Japan. So far, we've been to see bunraku puppet theater, noh theater (good for all of your "Who's On First?"-style comedic skit needs), a ryokan, numerous onsen, and a Maid Cafe. All of these classic Japanese cultural touchstones have been extremely well attended by Japanese people, if not enthusiastically so: Jenn has informed me that most of the crowd at the noh theater slept through it. The point is, people here make an effort to experience culture! Even if they find it stultifyingly boring, they go anyway, usually dressed in kimono, because that's just what you do.

In contrast, American Culture is a rather sketchy thing. For most Americans, culture is one of those things that happens to other people: sure, sure, there are art museums, operas, concerts, movie theaters, and malls. The thing is, most of these are also available in other countries, and the average trip to an American art museum or classical music concert will be a showcase of European works with a smattering of American and "world" (i.e., everywhere else) exhibits. They have art museums, operas, concerts (we've seen four punk bands and four ska bands in the last few months), movie theaters (usually playing American movies), malls, and KFCs here, too. I'm not saying there are no uniquely American art forms, but when was the last time you went to a jazz club or an improv comedy show because that's just what you do? [/tangent]

So, in order to gain a deeper understanding of Japan and Japanese people, Jenn and I attended a kabuki performance earlier this week. In the end, we confirmed what we had known pretty much all along: Japanese people are crazy.

(A quick side note: with this blog post, I'm walking on some familiar territory that hopefully will stay a few steps away from Shameless Rip-Off Land. Dave Barry already covered kabuki pretty thoroughly in his masterwork of cross-cultural dialogue. I will attempt to stray from stealing from him too much; I got over my wanting-to-be-Dave-Barry phase shortly before I resumed wanting to be a pirate.)

The play that we saw was called Kanadehon Chūshingura. Actually, technically, that's not true; our show began at 4:30, and we found out upon buying our programs that we had signed up for the second half of a series of selected acts from Kanadehon Chūshingura. The people we had seen pouring out of the theater at 4:15 were just getting out of the first half, which started at 11 a.m. Clearly, we were in for the long haul. Even more incredible is the fact that this was a 4:30 show on a Tuesday and there wasn't an empty seat in the theater.

Kabuki represents a very specific, highly stylized part of Japanese performance tradition involving period costumes, painted faces, and exaggerated poses:

Specifically, the goofy part of Japanese performance tradition. If they got a dozen more people on stage at once, it would have been a full-fledged ska concert.

Actually, "goofy" has some historical accuracy; the word kabuki has its etymological roots in the verb that translates as "to be out of the ordinary," and the aesthetic of kabuki dress and manner is based on a 16th-century group of itinerant, oddly-dressed thugs who posed as samurai and acted in an outrageous, eccentric fashion (sort of like theatrical productions by the SCA or Klingon Hamlet, if you will).

Klingons were actually on my mind pretty often during Chūshingura; the plot, based on actual historical events with the names and era changed (yes, like Law and Order!), concerned a group of samurai who seek to avenge their lord who was made to commit ritual suicide by the unscrupulous actions of a rival nobleman. I found the focuses of the various acts to be really interesting from a narrative perspective: it's a basic revenge story at its core, so I expected approximately a Kill Bill-type story arc, where we see the conspirators arm themselves, make their way to their target, and surmount one obstacle after another in their relentless pursuit of their goal. Here's a summary of the acts that we were able to see:

• Act VII: The head samurai diverts suspicion from the revenge conspiracy by hanging out with geishas all day and pretending to get tanked. Meanwhile, the play's comic relief tries to get the protagonist to let him join the conspiracy, and the protagonist tries to kill a geisha who overhears their plotting.

• Act VIII: Dancing.
  
  
• Act IX, which resolves most of the plotlines of the ancillary characters that we've been listening to for hours: Not performed.
  
  
• Act X: The conspirators take time off from their busy schedule to construct an extremely elaborate test of loyalty for the merchant from whom they bought their weapons. Hey, even insatiable engines of vengeance need to have some fun, right?
  
  
• Act XI: They storm the castle, kill the evil dude and live happily ever after.

The ending diverges slightly from the historical events: the original conspirators didn't so much "live happily ever after" as "kill themselves." But after 11 hours sitting in theater seats, the management knew that there would probably be a riot if they kept too close to the facts (especially since sake and beer were sold in the lobby).

The highlight of the production was probably the kid they got to play the merchant's 4-year-old son, mostly because I was able to understand his lines (like "お父さん！こわい！", "Dad! Scary!"). Also, he looked as bored as most of the audience. B+.