rock boccaccio

Above the stage are two words ‘Super Ichiza’. I don’t know what the phrase means, but below it there is a white stippled screen, with red and white lanterns lit and hanging from the ceiling and white and yellow lights blinking around the stage frame. In the pit some 15 players comprise an orchestra, black bow ties and white shirts, girls as well. Classical music emanates, led by the conductor, who has a trim moustache.

The screen lifts. To the left is ‘bar biere’. Placed before the shop is a coiling red white & blue column, although it is static and doesn’t revolve the way they do on the narrow streets outside the theatre. A bookseller enters in a simple brown robe and ribbed yellow hat, pushing a wooden cart in which we see a large pile of thick books. Dancers prance about the cart. ‘Best sella’ is heard. And, unmissably, on the cover of the largest book, held under the seller’s arm, in giant gold-on-red letters, is the title DECAMERON, reiterated on the spine. I am reminded of the roast-potato seller who each evening parades his cart around my Shinpo-cho neighbourhood, intoning ‘ya-kii-mo’ and ringing his bell. Some of the dancers, dressed like artisans of the time – well, kind of – seem intent on setting upon the bookseller. They hate Boccaccio and his books.

Enter our hero. Shards of blond hair poke out from under his hood. Attired in a red courtier’s outfit, with the toes on his long black boots curled up to ankle height, his left hand clutches a manuscript which is seldom glanced at throughout the performance. He lingers outside bar biere, gazing at the upstairs window, and commences to serenade. Shutters fly open. Swarthy Bertoluchia (she’s Japanese!), jet black hair bound closely about her head, dressed in bright red. Excitedly, she descends to open the door, through which Boccaccio, for some reason, enters backward – disguised, indeed, as a courtier minstrel: hence the manuscript – bowing slightly as he does so. It is clear, winks Keiko beside me, that the woman’s husband is out!

Another accompanying figure has in the meantime also entered the house. Both wooers appear with Bertoluchia on the upper floor. We see all three appear in silhouette, behind a screen, she turning from the kisses of one to the other. The audience revels in this, gasping with the shadowed movements and the unmistakable innuendo. The chorus, seeking Boccaccio, dances and sings on stage with umbrellas in their hands, Pinocchio-like, faces adazzle with luminous make-up. Abruptly, two masked men suddenly exit bar biere, and a fight ensues; the orchestral music rises to a crescendo. It turns out that one of the two is in fact Bertoluchia’s husband (am I the only one confused?). Histrionics subsiding, she slyly leads him back into their house… or is he a third lover?

As the couple disappears, a pretty slip of a girl in pink, a tiny pink purse clasped in her hand, and beside her – it appears – her mother, cross the stage. It’s night. Boccaccio is in the shadows but, from her response when she notices him, and the musical uptick, we know that he must have fallen for her. Immediately the mother is an impediment. And she’s so tall for a Japanese! Boccaccio now serenades the young girl, proffering a red rose. She runs from left to right, back to front of the stage, in quick shuffling steps, seeking – seeking? – him. The pink flowers in a circle round her hair are captivating. She and Boccaccio resolve into a duet.

Still night. A large chorus enters and dances. Among them a small man I soon learn (Keiko whispers explanations in my ear) is Prince. He too, I am informed, seeks a nubile young female: indeed, he’s hoping Boccaccio will be his mentor in matters chivalric. After flirting with several girls, Prince chooses an inordinately buxom one (an uncommon feature among the chorus dancers!) and off they go…

Boccaccio re-enters disguised, this time, as a beggar; and this time (not the last, egads) he again offers the girl in pink a rose, a red rose. The same shaft of hair protrudes from under his hood. The couple sings, enchanting us all. Nonetheless, she returns the rose. He has dropped it. Quickly she picks it up. A bunch of Spanish-looking ballerinas enters, garlands gracing the right sides of their hair, others pinned to the breasts of their red gowns. I find myself wondering why the roof tiles on the buildings behind them are so obviously in a Japanese style.

Prince, still seeking Boccaccio’s assistance, presses forward. He’s very nearly thrashed by the commoners, who mistake him for Boccaccio! When he tells them he is really Prince Ouji, they pretend total amazement. So, altogether, they sing a new song in which they greet him, ‘Kore wa Prince; kore wa Ouji’. They bow and fuss before him, not least the bar bier’s wife, who has rejoined the action. Of course, when the bookseller re-enters, he is immediately set upon. His cart is overturned, scattering the books; the crowd sets fire to them, fanning the smoke.

Lights brighten. Smoke subsides. The chorus girls rescue the books. The stippled curtain lowers.

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And rises. Prince, Boccaccio, and the third lover are on stage. There’s a tree to the left, replacing bar biere. Boccaccio repeatedly bows and stands there with his foot slightly extended, as I guess might be expected of a courtier minstrel.

Again night. With almost-empty wine bottles in their hands, several drunks enter and proceed to dance in a drunkenly fashion. They simulate vomiting.

The buxom girl with the pink hair appears. And although the pretty pink-attired girl also enters, the prince remains completely captivated with the buxom one. The three men appear to have hatched a scheme. Each, holding a ribboned scroll in his hand, presents it to the woman of his preference. Prince’s girl, however, for some reason, has disappeared indoors; in response, he tosses his scroll of affection up through the window. Unfortunately, the wrong window. Two girls come downstairs, singing and cat-fighting, each convinced that she is the prince’s choice and jealous of the other. So, the besmitten men sing to their girls, with Prince particularly blessed for choice. I see him draw towards the one who received his affection by mistake, only to have the buxom girl return with two small – not so small! – green balloons (soon to be popped) attached at the breast of her red dress. This is Isabella. (The third man by this time is with the pink girl’s mother.) Prince is infatuated; her smile – big wide grin – is unbecoming to all but him.

Isabella’s man comes on, really drunk. He flips her a coin! She, however, responds by putting him into a barrel that sits outside of her place. At this point people start hiding and re-emerging. I’ve given up on who’s who.

Thankfully, my increasing confusion is dispelled through the agency of the magic tree, which now becomes the centre of everyone’s attention. Boccaccio climbs it, nestling himself into the v at the branch, and informs those gathered below that from this tree he can see people kissing and kissing. Another male follows Boccaccio up the tree. He sees three couples kissing. This is ‘Paradise’. Dance breaks out again. The drunk rolls out of the barrel.

Enter the King’s servant. The commoners this time beat up the prince, who was himself in disguise. Another mistake! No-one is Boccaccio but the disguised Boccaccio! The king’s servant has a skin-coloured mask over his scalp reaching down to the eyebrows, which are drawn up like a pair of arrows, pointing inside his black hat; and he’s chubby, with a timorous voice. He proclaims that the pink girl is really the princess. She, looking on, is quite taken aback – her extremities begin to quiver. A princess-carrying-chair is brought on stage. It’s a weird contraption, part-stretcher part throne. Eventually, they coax her onto it, and she is carried off by two commoners, struggling to maintain their composure, even though she’s the tiniest of them all. They sing ‘Sayonara’.

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We’re inside the palace of the king. Beyond the colonnade is a large velvet curtain. The king’s servant enters from the right. Through a door under the curtain, the king, a decrepit hairy-looking little man, enters. He is to judge the commoners who apparently had earlier set upon his son. He’s like a mangey lion. Prince and Boccaccio enter. The prince is sad because the princess is in love with Boccaccio. But luckily Marietta (the girl towards whom the prince had mistakenly thrown his affection and with whom he is by now besotted: I think) enters; all will soon be well. Isabella’s husband re-enters with a large, English-looking, war medal on his chest. The other commoners are captivated by the medal, as they are by his obvious pride.

The characters explain themselves. Isabella re-enters. Boccaccio reenters. Now Boccaccio looks totally regal: he is wearing a red-fringed speckled gown, with glittering headwear. All dance.

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Like an epilogue, several dancers and the actors come on for a final horn-driven, Spanish dance extravaganza. They clap their hands beside their ears. The audience claps with them. The players bow, encore, as does the orchestra in their pit below the stage. This done, we all depart.

note

With a group of friends, English- and Japanese-speaking, in July 1996 I attend a rock kabuki version of the Italianised story of Boccaccio. This account is based on that performance, with a growing realisation that normal and strange are ineluctable bedfellows.