Kabuki-za

What makes it special

Kabuki-za sits behind a temple-style facade in Ginza, with the office block of Kabukiza Tower rising behind it. The current building, the fifth on the site, opened in 2013.

The stage is 27.4 metres wide but only 6.4 metres tall, so each scene plays as a long, low picture. The hanamichi, a raised runway, crosses the audience to the stage. From the highest seats you look down on all of it from far above, and the actors' faces are small.

The free parts are easy to miss. The fourth-floor corridor holds scale models of the earlier Kabuki-za buildings and photographs of famous actors. The rooftop Japanese garden, entered from the fifth floor of Kabukiza Tower, looks over the theatre's tiled roof and down over Ginza.

Visiting

Kabuki-za sells two kinds of seat: a full programme, bought online in advance, and single-act tickets for one play. Reserved single-act seats go on sale online from noon the day before. Unreserved ones are sold on the day at the Single Act Box Office, on Level 1 beside the main entrance.

Reserved single-act seats are fixed, while unreserved holders choose their own in order of entry. Take your seat five minutes before the start, switch your phone off rather than to silent, and do not lean forward, which blocks the view behind you. Photographs and recordings are banned during the play, even without flash.

Single-act holders get no intermission and cannot use the shops or restaurants on the lower levels. You leave after your act, and to see the next play you buy a separate ticket for it.

Guided or on your own

English captioning devices are not always on offer, so ask at the theatre which English support runs for your performance. If you rent one for two acts, it covers both only when they belong to the same programme. Kabuki-za is also the one theatre with a Simplified English audio guide.

Tips

Read the English synopsis in the programme booklet, or start the audio guide, before the act begins: the lines are hard to follow cold. Bring opera glasses for a seat high up, since a pair shows the stage far more closely from the same place; the theatre also rents them.

There is no dress code, and large luggage goes in the theatre lockers. With a full-programme ticket you can eat at your seat in the intervals, never during the play.