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RAKUGO: PERFORMING COMEDY AND CULTURAL HERITAGE IN CONTEMPORARY TOKYO. By Lorie Brau. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008. xv, 257 pp. 9 black-and-white illus. Notes, glossary, bibliography, and index. Cloth, $75.00; paper, $34.95.
Japan scholars, students, and those interested in traditional performing and narrative arts, early modern and modern history, popular culture, media, humor, and heritage-all these will surely want to have Rakugo: Performing Comedy and Cultural Heritage by Lorie Brau on their shelves, for both research and enjoyment. Rakugo is imperative to consider in gaining a fuller understanding of early modern Japan's comic literature (gesaku), the origins of modern Japanese literature, and contemporary Japanese humor, so this reviewer welcomes Brau's book.
Rakugo is a one-man/woman narrative art that requires little more for props, costume, or setting than a paper folding fan, a hand towel, a kimono, and a cushion to kneel. Partly because of this minimalism, rakugo is not discussed with the more dramatically "exciting" Japanese performing arts such as nö, kyögen, bunraku, and kabuki. Because these four Japanese theater genres showcase much for our visual and aural senses, they have drawn more academic attention in both the West and Japan. Rakugo may also have been overlooked by the West until recently since the primary mode of communication is language. Indeed, in classical stories (those composed in the Edo and Meiji periods) old words and subject matter challenge today's listeners-Japanese included. Listeners must both come to shows ready to set the stage with their imaginations and having done a bit of research before walking into a yose (variety hall) to listen to rakugo.
One day at lunch, Murakami Haruki translator Jay Rubin asked me, "Sure, rakugo is funny, but can you write about it and still make it funny?" Fear not, Professor Rubin, Lorie Brau has indeed made rakugo "funny," and still remained objective. Brau's opening is much like the makura (introduction) to a rakugo story. She efficiently lays out her study on rakugo and offers empathy for her readers, who are new to or perplexed by rakugo. She drolly confesses that she did not understand rakugo at first. "During their recitations, waves of laughter crashed around me, an island of silence" (1).
Chapter 1,...