Poor Man's Kabuki
Around 400 years ago rural inhabitants unable to afford expensive
kabuki actors from Japan's big cities started to stage their
own kabuki performances. They built simple stages in their villages,
usually facing the village shrine.
Most of these stages and their amateur actors have long since
vanished. But in some places the tradition lives on. The island
of Shodoshima, in the Inland Sea, once boasted thirty-three Nouson
Kabuki stages.