午夜剧场

In the late 1940s and early 50s, entertainment meant little more than the rakugo stories broadcast over the radio. Families would gather around a single radio set to listen to the performances of masters like Shinsho and Bunraku. Even the occasional power outages are now a fond memory.

The characters appearing in rakugo are not all good people. Thieves appear, but there are no brutal robbers. Most are fools who enter an empty house by mistake, or who intend to blackmail someone only to have their novice status seen through immediately, ending up stripping off their own clothes to beg for forgiveness.

One could say that rakugo forms a single virtual city. That is why some people call them "residents of the Rakugo Kingdom." A city cannot consist only of beautiful, respectable places. If theaters and show booths are built in bustling quarters, there will be a boss who controls them. The same goes for temple and shrine festivals. Where there are pleasure districts, there are also underground gambling dens.

Since the historical background of many stories is the late Edo period, education levels were not yet high. There are illiterate characters. The resulting misunderstandings create laughter. However, even if someone is a bit slow-witted or has a physical disability, they are never bullied or looked down upon.

Because rakugo is a performing art passed down through oral tradition, there is no definitive original text. It preserves vanished professions, annual events, and customs. Since it uses the language of the common people, one hears insults that are not very refined and expressions that are virtually dead words. The jargon and slang used among peers, which are fun to know, also continue to live on.

I became interested in this "underworld Japanese" born from popular entertainment—words rarely found in dictionaries—and tried to collect and reflect upon them. For example, even if you say "hettsui" (clay stove) or "yabuiri" (servant's holiday), young people today won't understand. Phrases like "tatesugosu" or "tatehiki ga tsuyoi," or the "Gama no Abura" (Toad Oil) sales pitch, are usually just let slide by the listener. For stories where the crucial "sage" (punchline) is hard to understand, the performer explains it beforehand in the "makura" (prologue), but if the secret is revealed in too much detail, the audience's interest cools. This is where the rakugo performer struggles.

Wine is something to be drunk and enjoyed, not something to show off one's knowledge about. The same is true for rakugo. However, much like cholesterol, there is "good" and "bad" trivia. The knowledge recorded in this book (though I don't think of it that way myself) is, of course, the good kind. It is extremely regrettable that, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the luxury of enjoying "trivial things" like rakugo is being lost.

Atsuyuki Shigekane

Sayusha

256 pages, 1,800 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.