For beginners and tourists, it would be a great experience to watch a REAL Kabuki. But PLEASE BE AWARE. Kabuki have various patterns of play, for example, old(traditional) type, new type (SHIN-KABUKI), latest type (SHINSAKU-KABUKI), and Japanese dancing type.
Some new type is too difficult to understand for tourists (sometimes too difficult even for Japanese!). I often saw that tourists were deeply disappointed when they watched over the new type of Kabuki. I guess they were looking forward to seeing the old and typical type but it wasn’t.
If you would like to see the dynamic make up(KUMA-DORI：隈取) and dynamic action with dynamic stop motion(MI-E：見得), we strongly reccomend to selct the play called “ARA-GOTOH”(荒事)。ARA-GOTOH is one of the category of old traditional play and most of all ARA-GOTOH play is very simple story, so the beginners easily can also enjoy to see it.
But in Kabuki poster, there are no message which is ARA-GOTOH or which is new type of kabuki. So if you would like to buy the ticket, do not hesiteta to ask the clerk in front of the Kabuki theatre “Which is ARA-GOTOH?” or “Which is traditional play?”. Most of clark can speak English and they will provide usefull information.
So you should memorize the words “ARA-GOTOH” and this will help you enjoyi to see Kabuki and you can enjoy the Edo era’s atmosphere.