Saturday, February 11, 2017
A Picture-Card Show hr586
I was absorbed in one kind of play when I was about seven years old. It
was paper play called ‘kamishibai’ in Japan. It’s a picture-card show in
which a performer tells a story while showing a picture that
corresponds to it. A performer impersonates the characters to say their
lines and flips a picture to the next one when the scene changes. It’s a
sort of street performance that is hardly seen these days. But when I
was little, an old picture-card showman came to the small park near my
house every two weeks or so. He would walk around my neighborhood while
ringing a bell to let children know the show was coming. When I heard
the bell, I would spring toward the park clenching small change in my
hand. The show was free, but the performer sold cheap snacks and candies
before the show. His theater was his bicycle. On the back of the
bicycle, a big wooden box was fixed that contained both the pictures and
candies. Once the show started, the box transformed into the picture
holder. By tacit agreement, children who had bought candies stood in the
front and those who hadn’t stood on their toes in the back to get a
view. Although the story itself didn’t interest me so much, I loved the
experience that I saw a live performance while eating delicious snacks.
It was a luxury to me. Probably because I liked it too much, I asked my
parents and got a picture-card show play set. The play set was available
at a bookstore and came with a sono-sheet. A sono-sheet was a very thin
flexible vinyl record on which the story, the lines of the characters
and the sound effects all that corresponded to the picture cards were
recorded. The instruction for the timing to flip the pictures was also
recorded. The story and the pictures were from a popular TV animation
program for kids. Unlike the picture-card show at the park, with this
play set, I was a performer. Since there was a vinyl to be played along
with it, I could sit in front of the picture holder and watch it as a
lone audience while listening to the record. Only, I wasn’t interested
in being the audience. I’d rather stood behind the picture holder and
flipped the pictures according to the instruction played on the record.
The characters’ lines were printed on the back of each picture and I
read them along with the record. The number of the picture cards were
over twenty and I practiced flipping each one of them in the perfect
timing and reading the lines with emotions by imitating the voice actors
on the record. That was my favorite play of my childhood and I spent a
lot of time and energy every day. The funny part was, I didn’t need any
audience. I practiced intently not to show the play but to perform
perfectly. And I performed exclusively for myself. This play couldn’t be
accomplished without the record player that sat in the guestroom of my
house. I would sneak in there to play with the set because I couldn’t
concentrate on my performance if someone heard or saw it. In case my
younger sister asked me to play it to her, I drove her away. Not to be
bothered by anyone, I didn’t even turn on the light of the room. I would
play the show along with the record alone in the dark, and relish
satisfaction and joy when I thought the performance went perfectly.
Recalling my favorite childhood play now, it awfully looks similar to
the way I engage in my work of music. I guess I make my songs
strenuously for perfection not for audience’s reception. I always
thought I pursued people’s attention and stardom, but it wasn’t true as
long as I remembered how I felt happy in my childhood. That explains why
my songs don’t ever sell. I perform to no audience. It seems that’s the
way I liked, and the way I’m destined for…
Labels:
animation,
audience,
bicycle,
child,
Childhood,
Japan,
kamishibai,
Music,
park,
performer,
picture-card,
play,
record,
record player,
song,
sound effect,
story,
street performance,
theater,
voice actor