Traces of Underground Theatre 'Angura' and 'Rakugo' comedy in Tokyo

The site of the 'Red Tent', sheltered by an orange-red shrine Hanazono shrine

If you have a chance to visit Shinjuku, Tokyo, you could explore the history of the underground theatre (angura) of the 1960s the traditional art of Rakugo comedy performance. This blog mentions a couple of notable locations and performances related to these genres.

Angura Engeki - Underground Theatre Background

Angura theatre emerged in the 1960s, alongside a growing unrest around the world amongst a generation of students appalled by the Vietnam war. In Japan, ideological battles led by the left also focussed on the terms of the postwar treaty with America which many thought needed urgent revision. Post war Shingeki theatre was absorbed the methods of a modernist literary theatre in Europe. Although Shakespeare and Brecht productions were produced by the 60s the movement was dominated by thise who understood theatre as a vehicle for political resistance and potential revolution. Angura was epitomised by the work of director Kara Jūro, and theatre and filmmaker Terayama Shūji, both exploring Situationist or avant-garde alternatives to more rational, dialogue-based literary theatre. Tadashi Suzuki prefers his work not to be pigeon holed as Angura, and has gone on to set up many significant theatres, trained hundred of new performers and if founded an alternative mainstream. Nevertheless his early work is often mentioned alongside that of Kara Jūro, Satō Makoto (Theatre Centre 67/68, The Black Tent) and Õta Shõgo (Tenkei-Gekijo). Jūro revisited the popular storytelling of Kabuki, alongside a fantastical, 'kitsch' irrationality. Suzuki's work revisited training methods from Noh and Kabuki, traditional or 'native' theatre techniques (theatre academic Tadashi Uchino's term). This signalled a return to an actor-centred theatricality, breaking away from the realism and structure of Shingeki though not abandoning a fascination with Western 'classics' by Chekhov (Three Sisters, Ivanov etc), adapting a classical Greek theatre (Electra, The Bacchae, Trojan Women etc) and Shakespeare (King Lear, Macbeth etc) as well as Japanese subjects (Utoh, Karatachi etc).

Key Locations

The grounds of Hanazono shrine, Shinjuku hosted the pop up 'Red Tent' of Kara Juro's Situation Theatre (Jõkyõ Gekidan) when the police shut down Angura performances because of their association with protests around Shinjuku theatre. At the time of Kara Jurõ's death in May 2024, The Red Tent was still touring Japan with performances by lifelong company members in the Karagumi group, including a season in the grounds of this shrine.

The video at the top of this blog ends in Shinjuku's Golden Street, or Goruden Gai. A hangout for many creative people connected with Angura in photography, film making, theatre and literature. When I visited I was asked not to take photos. Only recently I discovered the reason. The streets association requires visitors to purchase a licence: 「この街での撮影につきましては、『許可』が必要であり『有料』となっています」 (https://golden-gai.tokyo/photonotice/) "[By] the 1980s, many buildings in Tokyo were set on fire by yakuza, so the land could be bought up by developers, but Golden Gai survived because some of its supporters took turns guarding the area at night. [8 Coldicott, Nicholas. "Golden Gai" Archived 2012-10-19 at the Wayback Machine. Fodor's Travel Guides. Retrieved June 14, 2010.]

In 2025 there are several small, independent theatres across Tokyo presenting experimental performances or exhibitions. The following venues regulalry programme contemporary theatre and the websites have English versions:

Scool　https://scool.jp/

Buoy　https://buoy.or.jp/

Kichijōji gekijō　https://www.musashino.or.jp/k_theatre/ Although not in Shinjuku, this venue often features angura-style performances and is worth a visit.

II. Rakugo

In the last three years, thanks to collaborations with Dr Beri Juraic during his doctoral research at Lancaster University, and Dr Till Weingärtner (University College Cork) we have hosted several Japanese performers at the University of Salford [see these blog posts one after each name check]. These include contemporary performer Takuya Takemoto, director and Yuta Hagiwara and writer/director Yudai Kamisato as well as Rakugo performers Sanyutei Ryuraku and Sanyutei Seishōnen, Manga artist Goro Gahaku and calligrapher Yanai Atsuko whose event was titled Me-Ni-Karu, or 'Many Cultures'. In addition we have had an overview of very recent trands in contemporary Japanese theatre from Tadashi Uchino.

Discussing Rakugo and Underground theatre in the same blog seems an odd mix of the unpopular and popular but not impossible, considering research I conducted in 2022-2024 with Dr Ian Angus Wilkie. We demonstrated that the tactics of popular performance can be found in some of the most esoteric avant-garde performance work.

I went to find out more about the context in Tokyo, thanks to a guided tour of Suehiro-Tei, in Shinjuku, with director Yuta Hagiwara, of performance company, Kamome Machine.

Rakugo, although outwardly the principle is the same: a single storyteller kneeling on a cushion, elevated on a dias, offering their own take on familiar stories determined by the season. The only props they are allowed are a collapsable fan (sensuu) and a handkerchief (tenugui)

A Rakugo Study Group

Rakugo producer Sarah Stark invited me to a tiny venue in Takadanobaba to see Rakugo performer who has been gaining more and more audience interest and some coverage in the media, Yanagitei Shigaraki.

The room was on the top of a block of offices with just about enough room for 30 people to sit in front of a dias, covered in a red cloth, with a purple cushion placed on top.

Normally the golden rule with comedy is not to analyse it in earnest - it's guaranteed to kill the very comedy that you are looking for. This format was intrioduced by the practitioner and it is a great model: part performance, part promotion, part guest interview.

On this occasion I attended a full evening of "study" for enthusiasts of this particular artist, Yanagitei Shigaraki. The session included a spontaneous radio interview recording with a Shamisen player. The Shamisen is an instrument often used an accompaniment for comedians.

Four Rakugo stories

Dressed in a summer Yukata, perhaps slightly more formally, a montsuki, befitting the hanashi-ka, or professional Rakugo Perofrmer. Shigaraki told four Rakugo stories with a break in the middle. Other contemporary Rakugoka (Tatekawa Shinharu, who has given sevral research-based performances at Cambridge university, and Katsura Sunshine, a Canadian performing in Japanese) have made a respectful augmentation of the traditional Rakugo.

Shigaraki gave a high-octane performance that surpirsed me for its extended physicality. I had the impression that these performances would be more gentile and whimsical - perhaps a little archaic. Far from it. His impersonation of catching eels was captivating - who cannot imagine the difficulty and this is where the physical comedy really started. He was limited to kneeling down on the Zabuton cushion but did a perfect mime of trying to get hold of a least one slippery eel in whole bucketful of the slimy creatures.

A story that took him to a horse racing track started as a fantasy story about a Dad who takes his child to school in a pram. He ends up carrying his child on his shoulders to comfort him, while responding to greetings and interruptions from passers-by. By the end he is soaring like Pegasus dive bombs a horse race and wins the race. Somehow even he managed to convey surprise at his own fantasy and this level of self-reflexivity and clarity was impressive, given that it was underscored by physical frenzy and precise switches left and right to indicate interaction with specific passers-by.

His story about a cabbage-seller on his first day in the job who was such an idiot over-thinker that he couldn't bring himself simply to imitate his employer and shout out that he has cabbages for sale. Add to this the challenge of working out a price, that so many of us have faced on the first day behind the till and the audience's sense of comic relief and recognition was huge.

His final act was a delicious postmodern tangle of 21 Personalities - a meta Rakugo about switching personas and getting stupidly stuck on one that really does not work - a robotic non-entity, again with a multitude of interlocutors interrupting an dtesting each persona.

A Rakugo performer's reflections

As part of the Study Event, Shigaraki offered some reflections on how it went, returning to the dias, this time wearing t-shirt and trackie bottoms. I was surprised to hear in the radio interview that he doesn’t watch Youtube, because the whole event felt like a live Youtube stream, especially this element of reflection and the guest interview.

Interview with a shamisen player

Finally a shamisen accompanist whose name I didn’t catch joined him on the red Dias and cushion for a zatsudan or chit-chat with questions ranging from how do you promote Shamisen? to nostalgia for an 1980s brand of chocolate-coated biscuit which I think we can still get in the UK: 'Pocky'.

The introduction or makura for this whole evening now made loads of sense: what he has been up to, how he has featured in the Mainichi newspaper, and some jokes to get back at previous critics. Also at the event was author Kazuo Hirose, a Rock musician and Rakugo journalist, who regularly writes about New Rakugo and its many innovations.

There were a lot of women in the audience. According to Dr Sarah Stark some Rakugo-kas have an audience of 95% women. On this occasion the audience constantly documented and chatted online with other fans. Shigaraki gave away three copies of the Mainichi newspaper interview and there was a strong sense of this being a special event for people who want to get to know more about the creative process, and backstage thinking and to support the performer in working towards his career aims.

Conclusion

Exploring the underground theatre scene and Rakugo performances in Shinjuku will offer you a unique glimpse into Japan's artistic heritage. Be sure to check local listings for performance schedules and special events during your visit.