There is also a lot of audience participation in Kabuki. Kabuki is very popular and many middle class people go to see performances. This is probably due to the fact that it is watched more by ordinary people. Also, while Kabuki can be serious and emotional, as a whole it appears to be more comedic than Chinese Opera. The elaborate set pieces and trap doors that were originally manually operated, incorporate mechanisms that change the set quickly. There are several entry points to the stage and even trap doors. Kabuki incorporates very elaborate sets and props into their performances. However, there are several aspects that separate Kabuki from Chinese Opera. While in some Chinese performances there is a quick change of masks, Kabuki also uses quick change but of costume.

Another aspect of performance these two types have in common is that they use a lot of acrobatics in performances. They also center around song and music produced by instruments. As opposed to other types of Asian theaters, Kabuki and Chinese Opera incorporate speaking and dialogues.

Neither make use of women in performances. Also, both types of theater have males that specialize in portraying female roles. Chinese Opera uses make-up to indicate characters such as a clown character and female character. For Kabuki, there were different make-up patterns to indicate the hero and villain. Both incorporate different types of make-up designs that indicate different kinds of characters. Today in class, I could not help but see the many similarities between Kabuki and Chinese Opera.

Chinese opera masks history