# Part Seven: The Conditions of a Shin’uchi
## Chapter 14: A Smaller Venue
Three days before the performance, Mizuno received an email from the organizer.
The subject line read:
[Important] Notice of Venue Change
A problem had been found in the air-conditioning equipment at the planned rakugo venue, and there was no clear date for repairs. The performance would therefore move to a nearby civic hall. It had not been canceled, but there would be fewer seats and the stage equipment would be simpler.
The civic hall was about a ten-minute walk from the previous venue. The Third Meeting Room, where the performance would be held, had a capacity of sixty. Mizuno’s reserved seat would remain secured. Saeki had another commitment, so he went alone this time.
On the day, a notice printed on copy paper was taped near the entrance to the civic hall.
Asanoya Ichifune Local Rakugo Show
Second Floor, Third Meeting Room
Following the handwritten arrow upstairs, Mizuno found the reception desk set up on a long, narrow table in the hall.
“Sorry for the sudden change,” the organizer said as he accepted Mizuno’s ticket.
“That must have been difficult.”
“We’re glad we could hold it at all. The sound and lighting won’t be what they were at the other venue.”
At the front of the Third Meeting Room, two conference tables had been placed side by side with a board across them to make a low stage. Without the red cloth and cushion, it would have looked like a meeting still being set up.
There was no stage lighting, only two small lamps aimed at the front. The entrance music would apparently be played from one speaker by the wall and a laptop.
The audience was close as well. There were only a few steps between the front folding chair and the cushion. Even seated near the back, Mizuno felt the stage was immediately in front of him. The walls were thin, and the voice of a man who sounded like an instructor sometimes came from the next room.
Some of the customers from the previous venue were there. An elderly woman in the front row repeatedly thanked the organizer and laughed.
“It’s closer, so I can see their faces.”
At the scheduled time, the organizer greeted the room without a microphone. In a room for sixty, an unamplified voice reached the back.
“Because of the equipment situation, today’s performance will be a little different from usual, but we hope you enjoy it to the end.”
After the applause, the entrance music came from the speaker. It was thin, and the low end barely spread, but it served as a signal for someone to come onto the stage.
The opening performer began with how close the audience was.
“Today I can see all your faces very well. And I imagine you can see mine very well too.”
When the audience laughed, the sound returned to the stage immediately. At the previous venue, reactions had spread from the front toward the back. In this room, they came back from the same place as the performer.
Throat-clearing, clothing rubbing, and paper being folded were close too. It was not a room where only the performer’s voice could be heard, but even small changes in the audience reached the stage.
After the second storyteller left, there was a short intermission.
The class in the next room continued.
“Now take a moment to check your posture.”
The words came clearly through the wall, and several people in the audience lifted their heads.
This room had not been prepared for a rakugo show. When the intermission ended, Ichifune’s performance would begin with the neighboring voice still there.
After the thin entrance music, Asanoya Ichifune climbed onto the low stage.
His face was closer than it had been before. After looking across the audience, he began in a slightly restrained voice.
“Today’s venue changed on short notice. I almost went to the other building myself.”
The audience laughed.
“The performer is the one who read the venue-change notice least carefully.”
When the laughter spread, Ichifune did not wait long. The audience’s response returned immediately in front of him. If he used the same pause as before, the next line would arrive late. He put it in just before the laughter disappeared.
His voice was not as loud as it had been before either. The distance did not require him to push it toward the back. Using his usual volume would strike the front row too hard.
The reduction in equipment did not mean Ichifune was adding something else to fill the gap. He lowered his voice, shortened the pauses, and adjusted the movement of the story to the size of the room.
The main story was about a man in a row house who went next door to borrow a cooking pot.
He meant to borrow only the pot, but the neighbor asked what he was making for dinner. Another resident began commenting on the seasoning and how to start the fire. Eventually even the landlord joined in.
Each time Ichifune changed the direction of his face and voice, the man borrowing the pot, the neighbor, and the landlord traded places. The stage was low and the fluorescent lights remained bright, but the people in the row house appeared before the white meeting-room walls did.
In the middle of the story, the instructor’s voice entered from the next room.
“Next, slowly roll your shoulders.”
It overlapped Ichifune’s words, and the audience’s attention was pulled once toward the other side of the wall.
Ichifune did not raise his voice to push back. He stopped until the neighboring voice ended, then placed the previous line again in a slightly different form.
The audience’s attention returned to the story.
The man had only meant to borrow a pot, but before he knew it, the neighbors had taken over the cooking itself, and the meal was carried to the landlord’s house.
When Ichifune played the man looking around his empty home, the audience laughed.
Unlike in a larger venue, laughter did not overlap after arriving late from the back. Laughter that began in one place passed immediately to the next person and reached the whole room in a short time.
Ichifune placed the final line where that laughter remained.
The audience laughed once more.
The applause was not as long as before, but the performance in the poorly equipped meeting room did not feel unfinished. The characters had taken shape. The row house dinner had been carried to the landlord’s home. The audience had received the ending.
After the performance, the woman in the front row said to the customer beside her, “Because we were close, I could see the expressions.”
“But the chairs at the usual place are easier.”
“That’s true.”
They laughed.
The close venue had its own advantages, but it had not become more comfortable than before. The entrance music was thin. Voices came through from the next room. Sitting for a long time on a folding chair tired the body.
Worse conditions had not simply created new value.
Mizuno waited for the audience to thin, then spoke to Ichifune beside the stage.
“Thank you again today.”
“Thank you.”
“It was a different venue, but it still felt like the same performance.”
“When the place changes, I adjust to the place.”
“Was your voice different too?”
“A little quieter. When people are this close, my usual voice would be hard on those in front.”
“The pauses seemed shorter too.”
“Because they’re close, the response comes quickly. If I wait too long, an empty space opens.”
Ichifune was not saying that reduced equipment caused no problem. A different room created more difficult points, and leaving them untouched would not produce the usual story.
“But you don’t change the story?”
“The story is the same.”
That answer came immediately.
“I adjust to the place, but I can’t hand the core of the story over to the place.”
Clearing began around them. A staff member lowered the small lamps from their stands. Power cables rubbed along the floor, and the light that had illuminated the stage disappeared.
“Can you perform without sound equipment or a stage?”
“If I can see their faces and there’s a place to sit. If there’s no stage, I’ll do it on the floor.”
Ichifune laughed slightly.
“My knees might hurt a little.”
“What would have to disappear before you couldn’t do it?”
He did not answer this question immediately.
When the staff removed the red cloth, only the cushion remained on the conference tables.
“If I couldn’t speak,” Ichifune said.
“Or if I forgot the story. Something like that.”
The organizer called him, and Ichifune returned to the cleanup.
By the time Mizuno left, the reception table had been folded and the notice removed from the wall. In the Third Meeting Room, the red cloth was folded, and the tables that had been the stage only moments earlier had returned to their normal height.
The form of the rakugo show disappeared quickly from the room.
In the first-floor lobby, Mizuno opened his notebook.
The venue becomes smaller.
Sound, lighting, and seating decrease.
Below that, he wrote:
The performance remained.
What has to remain for it to be the same product?
The next morning, Kuroda was waiting for documents beside the multifunction printer.
When Mizuno went to collect his own printout, Kuroda saw the rakugo program in his hand.
“Rakugo again?”
“The venue changed suddenly yesterday.”
“Was it canceled?”
“They did it in a small meeting room.”
“And?”
“There was less lighting and sound equipment. Fewer than half as many seats.”
The multifunction printer released one sheet.
“Could they still do rakugo?”
“They could. The voice and timing changed for the room, but the story remained.”
“That means they could operate in a degraded state.”
“A degraded state?”
“When you can’t maintain everything, you keep the center running.”
Kuroda looked at the printer display. The remaining page count was falling.
“In a factory or a system, you can’t stop everything just because one part fails. Stop what needs to stop and keep the necessary functions moving.”
“You can’t do that unless you know what the center is first?”
“Right. Work that knows what to stop and what not to stop can move even under bad conditions.”
Mizuno opened the page from the night before.
What has to remain for it to be the same product?
Below it, he wrote:
When conditions worsen,
what must remain for the product to continue?
Degraded-operation capability
The final sheet fell into the printer tray.
When the machine stopped, only the voices in the office remained.
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