STAGE REVIEW : GRAND KABUKI: ART BENEATH THE BROCADE

One could get hooked on Kabuki. Wednesday night’s performance by the Grand Kabuki at Royce Hall, UCLA, was at once exotic and familiar, as distant as a papal coronation and as lowbrow as Abbott and Costello.

This isn’t the company’s first visit to Los Angeles. (Performances continue through Sunday, and tickets are scarce.) It played the Greek Theatre in 1960 and 1969. But we were perhaps a bit too awed by Kabuki in those days to appreciate its many moods, including its ability to wink at itself.

Since then we’ve learned from such interpreters as Pomona College’s Leonard Pronko what a human art Kabuki is, beneath all that brocade. And the Grand Kabuki has learned to present itself with less austerity. (In this show the actors even introduce themselves and ask us to be their fans.) In any case, the program makes it clear how many mansions this theatrical kingdom contains.

There are two complaints: (1) Royce Hall has failed to provide enough rented headsets for those who want to follow the action--a particular pity in view of the quality of Faubion Bowers’ commentary, which is not on tape; (2) Los Angeles should be seeing both programs on the company’s American tour, not just one.

Other than that--a feast. The first course is “Shibaraku,” a beloved old warhorse in the “rough-and-tumble” style, featuring the newly crowned Danjuro XII, versus his real-life uncle, Shoroku II.

Do not expect roundhouse swings and broken chairs. Kabuki goes for essences. The “rough-and-tumble” consists chiefly of the hero, Danjuro, clattering down the runway in a fearsome manner and fixing the villain, Shoroku, with a laser-beam glare--no easy task when wearing nearly 100 pounds of fantastically overladen costume. (The arms are like beach umbrellas.)

The new Danjuro’s voice did not send prickles down this listener’s spine. But the actor sails in like a dreadnought, and his presence may grow in terror as he advances in age. He is, after all, only 39.

(It’s also possible that there is a trace of send-up in the “rough-and-tumble” tradition, just as in our vision of the strong, silent Western hero. In the cadence of Danjuro’s speech, one listener thought he caught an echo of the galloping-off-in-a-cloud-of-dust voice of the Lone Ranger.)

Next we had “The Sword Thief,” the most nimble piece of comedy on this stage since Giorgio Strehler’s Piccolo Teatro di Milano did “The Servant of Two Masters” at the Olympic Arts Festival. One didn’t need a headset to see the gag. A half-drunk thief (Tatsunosuke) filches the sword of an innocent country gentleman (Yasosuke) and then proves to a judge (Sadanji) that he is the gentleman and his victim the thief.

This involves some droll mirror movements, with Tatsunosuke always a half beat behind his victim, hoping that if he throws in enough bravado, the judge won’t notice. What we notice is this actor’s control (while pretending clumsiness) as a dancer, especially the quickness of his hands. And this is a voice that could chill you.

Next comes Danjuro’s name-taking ceremony, which gives everyone in the company a chance to say how glad he is to be in Los Angeles, and how much he hopes we will enjoy his (not “our”) performance. It’s as honest a display of actor’s ego as one has ever seen on the stage, and it’s particularly delicious to find it in a context of formal humility. A sly business, Kabuki.

But there are no smiles during the last play, “Kasane.” This is a dark piece of love and death, played with alarming skill by the company’s great male actress, Tamasaburo, and his stage partner, Takao. Alarming, in particular, when the beautiful and obedient lady gives way--as in a movie dissolve--to a sexless dybbuk claiming revenge on her lover for a sin in his past.

Once more in a framework of absolute control, this piece communicates the terror of Munch’s image of the skull screaming on the bridge. (A skull and bridge both figure in the story.) There are spirits out there, it says, and they mean to damn us. A theater that can go this high, and this low, has much to teach the American theater. The next time the Grand Kabuki visits Los Angeles, let it be for a longer stay.

‘THE GRAND KABUKI’ At Royce Hall, UCLA. Chairman Takeomi Nagayama. Artistic director Onoe Shoroku II. Deputy chairman Morio Horiuchi. Associate artistic director Onoe Kuroemon II. General manager Chikashi Mogi. Assistant general managers Tadashi Abiko, Haruhiko Akamatsu, Jiro Otani. Principal actors, Onoe Shoroku II, Ichikawa Danjuro XII, Onoe Tatsunosuke, Kataoka Takao, Bando Tamasaburo V, Ichikawa Sadanji IV, Bando Yasosuke V, Nakamura Shibajaku VII, Ichikawa Ginnosuke, Ichikawa Unosuke III, Onoe Shokaku II, Kataoka Juzo VI, Kataoka Kamezo IV, Onoe Sakon. Musicians Kiyomoto Shizutayu, the Kiyomoto Ensemble, the Nagauta Ensemble and the Narimono Ensemble. Narration Faubion Bowers. Performances at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, with 1 p.m. matinees Friday-Sunday. Tickets $20-$42. (213) 680-3700 or (213) 825-926l.