Built in 1835, Kanamaru-za is Japan's oldest surviving kabuki theatre and still functions as a working performance venue. The interior is a complete Edo-period playhouse: a steeply raked seating area divided into wooden box seats, a hanamichi raised walkway through the audience, trap doors, a hand-powered revolving stage, and the original oil-lamp holders in the cantilevered side balconies where wealthy patrons once watched from box seats.
Outside the April festival, visitors can tour the interior. The guides — sometimes retired stagehands — take you below the stage to see the wooden machinery: the naraku pit, the rope-driven revolve, and the lift mechanism that brings actors up through the floor. The whole apparatus is still in working order. Allow about an hour. Closed Tuesdays except during the festival.