AN extraordinary event took place in a Tokyo theatre recently. During a performance of a Kabuki play at the Kabukiza theatre, there was a sudden commotion and a very drunken man climbed on to the hanamichi, a raised and footlit platform through the audience from the back of the stalls to the stage.

This drunk stopped the play and the stage manager asked him to return to his seat. Unfortunately this only aggravated the situation, and another man entered the fray in defence of the drunk. He did this by punching and kicking the stage manager, seating himself on the hanamichi, and ordering the play to continue.

You can imagine how this story caught my attention, acting regularly, as I do, at the Globe theatre. I was once stopped, when I was playing Cleopatra, by a man shouting: "What's wrong with real women? Why do I have to watch these fairies?" He had a point, though the word "fairies" rather betrayed his deeper concerns.

Actually the idea of me playing Cleopatra came from my visit to the Kabukiza Theatre, where I witnessed the exquisite playing of women by the special Kabuki actors, the onnagata. Though it remains an all-male tradition to this day, kabuki was started by a woman, Izumo no Okuni, in the very same decade that the Globe was built in London. An extraordinary fact.

But I have digressed; after this man had beaten the stage manager in the Kabukiza theatre, another man, Chobei, stepped calmly on to the stage and asked the thug to return to his seat. Chobei is a well-known businessman in Tokyo, who spends much time and money in charitable works. The other man and the drunk, it turns out, were both employees of a very powerful family corporation, and more than that, sitting in the audience was the head of this corporation, a Mr Mizuno. Anyway, the sitting man refused to budge, and Chobei - who is an expert martial artist - with a few well aimed blows sent him running from the theatre. The play resumed.

End of story? Not quite. What took place in the Kabukiza Theatre apparently shamed Mizuno. Chobei received an invitation to Mizuno's mansion and the following day Mizuno turned himself in for Chobei's murder. Why?

Friends and family of Chobei have revealed at the centre of this story a man who was entirely aware of his impending assassination, but who saw an opportunity to take a stand against tyranny in the city. He had pre-arranged the delivery of a coffin at the mansion, which arrived only moments after his death. This seems to have so struck Mizuno with shame that he turned himself in within hours.

Chobei's friends, and indeed his wife and young son, have emerged as playing extraordinary parts in the events. Chobei accepted Mizuno's invitation despite the advice of his friends, and it seems his wife was aware of his moral dilemma and supported him in his decision. The image that really haunts me is the account given of Chobei's farewell to his young son, who, unaware of the nature of Chobei's work that day, ran out to him as he left and asked him not to be late home from work that evening.

I witnessed all this, as you probably have guessed, within the walls of the Kabukiza Theatre, in a Kabuki play from the 19th century. Kabuki, like its comic cousin Kyogen, can seem remote and difficult. In my experience it is quite the contrary; a very popular and human theatre, which shares much with what was happening in Shakespeare's England.

This summer two of my favourite actors in the world will visit London during the Japan 2001 festival. If you, like me, regret that you never saw Olivier on the stage, don't miss the Kabuki actor Nakamura Ganjiro III or his Kyogen colleague Mansai Nomura.