Yachiyoza

Yachiyoza survives on maintenance and memory as much as on its original construction — that tension is part of the visit.

Yachiyoza was built in 1910 by the merchants of Yamaga, who put up the money themselves for a proper playhouse in a town that had grown rich on the Kikuchi river trade. It has the full Edo apparatus — revolving stage, trap lifts, sunken box seating, a hanamichi through the audience — combined with German-made rails under the revolve, which was a very 1910 kind of modern.

It fell into disuse and was nearly lost, then restored over years with the town's own fundraising, and it is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property that still stages performances. Between them you can go in for ¥530 and walk the stage, the understage machinery and the boxes. The painted advertisements on the ceiling, sold to local businesses in 1910, are original.