Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2025 - 32

Top: The virtual Kabukiza Theatre file on Sketchfab. Bottom: A view of the Hanamichi from the stage on Sketchfab. | Courtesy of Naoko Skala.
male role. Because of the unique circumstances,
the actor explained the situation
before the performance and shared his
nervousness about performing a male
role because he has not performed any
male role in his professional career. He
asked the audience to watch with low
expectations and kind minds. It brought
the audience together because most of
the audience felt we had a role and responsibility
in supporting the actor for
the production's success. The loud applause
and cheering for his first entrance
as a male character proved that. At the
curtain call, I cannot forget the actor's facial
expression of accomplishment. The
whole house's standing ovation and long
applause made my eyes wet. I felt I was a
part of creating the production, although
it happened accidentally.
Building the Virtual 3D Model
As a theatre educator, I believe that experiential
learning is the most significant
component of compelling theatre
pedagogy, and using virtual 3D technology
to " experience " walking through the
Kabuki theatre would be an effective
way to learn theatre architecture in a
foreign country when visiting it proves
impossible.
As mentioned earlier, Shochiku
owns permanent theatres, including
Kabukiza
in Tokyo,
which performs
Kabuki throughout the year. The fourth
version of the Kabukiza Theatre is very
similar to those of the third and fifth (current)
versions. For those reasons, I decided
to create a virtual 3D file with the
floor plan of the fourth version.
Kabuki theatre stages require special
stage machinery to distinguish the
stage from other art forms: Hanamichi
path (花道), a large turn table, several
sizes of scenic lifts/trap doors, and also a
small lift for humans on the Hanamichi,
called Suppon (すっぽん). Images on
page 30 show the turn table under the
stage of Kanamaruza and a Suppon
under the stage of Aioiza show how the
stage machinery works. Their productions
and the theatres in the 17th century
operated the stage machinery with
human hands instead of electronics. The
Kabukiza Theatre uses electronic power
to operate the stage machinery, but the
mechanism of the machinery is the same
as the others.
For this project, I used Vectorworks
to recreate the floorplan from the book
Takumi no Waza: Making Kabukiza
(Otsuki 2014) and converted/exported
the file to STL file format, which is the
general file format for 3D printing and
is also easy to transfer to the virtual reality
environment. Because the primary
purpose of this project is to provide the
ability to go through the space without
32 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | ISSUE 4, 2024
physically visiting the site, I created the
VR file with the very basic structures, but
as a theatre practitioner/educator, I prioritized
using a similar process for the
ground plan and 3D model file to print
for my other theatre productions.
Because the stage machinery is used
for the specific scene, entrance/exit, or
shifting the scenery, the Hanamichi path is
the only significant theatre structure that
can be walked around with VR. In a public
theatre tour, people usually walk around
the empty stage and staff move the turntable
and fly in a backdrop or two. So, for
a virtual walkthrough, this experience can
be fulfilled with this VR environment.
Throughout my research on Kabuki
Theatre and the creation of the 3D model
of Kabukiza Theatre, I was encouraged
to design scenery for a Kabuki play
and participate in its production. The
permanent turntable, the multiple trap
doors, and the Hanamichi path for the
entrance and exit excited me as a designer
and a Kabuki fan. If I could expand
the VR project, I would like to create a
separate virtual space under the stage
and add some virtual scenery I designed
for a Kabuki play on stage; would walk
through the space and observe the scenic
changing devices closely. I would also
like to create a virtual Ji-Kabuki theatre
in the future to provide an opportunity to
compare virtual experiences.

Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2025

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