Kabuki theatre and Trafalmadorian novels

This will be brief but I think it is still a relevant interesting comparison:

Some brief background info:
So, Shozo Sato is a really famous Japanese playwright, director, and artist. He worked at the U of I for many years until his retirement. He now lives on Hawaii. He was one of the people that brought kabuki to America and adapted it to make it more appealing to the new audience. This weekend he did a kabuki version of Lady Macbeth in the Studio Theater at Krannert Center. It was his last show.

A quick lesson on Japanese theatre for those of you who are unfamiliar. Kabuki theater derives its name from the verb kabuku meaning "to be out of the ordinary". Unlike "normal", American theatre, the focus of kabuki is not the plot line but rather the overall beauty of each scene. The actors have completely painted faces and dramatic attire. Extreme choreographing is also an important aspect of the art form. Every movement on stage is carefully planned and practiced, from each step to gesture to blink. The intonation of the voice is also manipulated creating the slow, singsong voices of typical actors. A koken is a person hooded and robed in black that manipulates the props during a scene in the full view of the audience. Also a percussionist sits on stage throughout the play opening and closing scenes using his or her wooden blocks. The end result of the kabuki show is a sensory experience, not a mental diversion by escaping into another world.

The comparison:

Kabuki theatre is comparable to the Tralfalmadorian novels in Slaughterhouse-Five and Shozo Sato's role in kabuki theatre is similar to Kurt Vonnegut's role in relation to Tralfalmadorian fiction.

Although the kabuki in the USA often has a plot line and identifiable characters, traditional kabuki is almost devoid of plot. The thinking is that is diverts attention from the overall beauty. Tralfalmadorian fiction is similar. It takes scenes that are completely random and compiles them into one piece that shows a picture of life that is beautiful. Both art forms are sensory experiences as well.

That was about the extent of my comparison until I realized how similar Shozo Sato and Kurt Vonnegut are in relation to their art forms. Both authors take a foreign art form and bring it to America. In the case of kabuki, the art form is too different and the American public is unreceptive. Sato then got the idea to take Western literature, mostly Shakespeare, and transpose it into the kabuki style to give the US something they could understand as a medium of translation for something unfamiliar. Thus, Sato produced plays in the style of kabuki much as Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five is "in the style of" a piece of Tralfalmadorian fiction because Earthlings would be unable to read like the Tralfalmadorians. It is interesting to see how similar the things they added seem to be. Both authors added plot because the new audience feels that the sheer beauty of the original work isn't enough. Both authors draw from familiar sources (Vonnegut from WWII and Sato from Shakespeare) and provide a new look at it, exploring different facets of the known concept. The things like koken and the percussionist are similar to when Vonnegut acknowledges that Slaughterhouse-Five is a novel too. Finally, the overall aim of both works is not scene to scene coherency or plot tension but rather the big picture and its beauty.

It's really interesting when you can see these similarities because at least to me, it deepens the significance of themes or plot devices. Seeing a writing technique applied once is just a taste, you get the general idea. When you see it again, you notice different aspects and your understanding deepens. I don't know if this is totally lame but it's like those bars at Great Harvest that have like loads of different things in them. When you first take a bite you notice like chocolate and then as you eat more you taste more things. I think it's cool.