Kabuki
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One Afternoon in Tokyo we went to a special "introductory" performance of Kabuki theater.  Most of the people in the audience were westerners, I believe.  We rented radio receivers with earphones that described the action on the stage to us in English.

This particular production included an introductory talk by one of the performers (also translated into English on the earphone), in which he explained the various conventions of Kabuki theater including the function of the narrator and the musicians.

I have read an excerpt about Kabuki in Dave Barry's Book Dave Barry Does Japan which describes my impression of Kabuki theater perfectly.  I am a fan of Operas by Verdi and Puccini, and I I can understand developing an appreciation for Kabuki, but I must say for the most part it did seem extremely boring and I was glad we were not there for an 8-hour evening performance.  It was fascinating to imagine that Kabuki could possibly be a form of popular entertainment for any culture; imagine how bored people would have to be to find it interesting. 

This particular play revolved around a sword which was said to be able to cut two people in half in one blow, and a large part of the action involved cutting a condemned prisoner in half.  This condemned prisoner was played as comic character; I kept trying to imagine anything this grotesque in western theater.