Kabuki

The rills of outside influence that trickled into shibai during the 225 years of Tokugawa peace were very small, but the real hunger of the people for knowledge from overseas is shown in the eagerness with which Kabuki appropriated such information as could be smuggled into the country.

From the time that O-Kuni and her successors wore rosaries with the cross attached as a decoration for their stage costumes, Kabuki exhibited receptiveness to imported ideas from Europe and China.

When O-Kuni was attracting the populace of Kyoto everything European became suddenly the vogue. Murdoch in his History of Japan refers to this period of Western influence as follows: “Western dress became so common that on casually meeting a crowd of courtiers it was difficult to say at once whether they were Portuguese or Japanese. To imitate the Portuguese some of the most ardent votaries of fashion even went so far as to commit the paternoster and the Ave Maria to memory. Reliquaries and rosaries were eagerly bought; all the lords, Hideyoshi and his nephew, went about with crucifixes and reliquaries hanging from their necks, a tribute not to piety, but to fashion.” Murdoch also mentions a feudal lord who marched to Yedo at the head of two thousand picked men, whose banners all bore beautiful crosses, while on his own helmet was a great “Jesus” in gold.

It was in the middle of the sixteenth century that the relations between Japan and the West first began, with the coming of the Portuguese ships to the coast of Kyushu in 1543. They were followed by the Spanish, English, and Dutch. Xavier reached Japan in 1549 and left in 1551.

As the result of the Jesuit missionaries’ activities, Christianity spread in the neighbourhood of Kyoto, where churches were built. An English factory was established in Japan in 1613, but withdrew ten years later. The Jesuits came to be looked upon as political intriguers, and Hideyoshi issued orders to suppress Christianity. The expulsion of the Spaniards took place in 1624, followed by edicts against the Portuguese and Dutch.

By 1630 Western books were interdicted, and in 1635 all travelling abroad was prohibited under penalty of death. Ninety years after the first arrival of the Portuguese ships, foreign intercourse was forbidden, except with the Dutch and Chinese under severe restrictions. So rigorous were the measures taken against Christianity that by 1638 it had been practically extirpated.

This did not prevent the people from evincing great curiosity with regard to the unknown lands beyond the seas, and references to the forbidden subject were frequent in the plays, particularly those written for the marionettes. In these old pieces the playwrights equipped their characters with the firearms introduced by the Portuguese, who had given instruction how to make guns and cast cannon.

In one of these plays a telescope is seen, which two comedians use with such telling effect that they can see the approach of the heroine from afar. Other characters take out spectacles the better to see to read by the light of the oil wick in the andon, or portable paper lantern carried about to illuminate a room.

This early period of intercourse with other lands produced an unmistakable effect upon stage costumes. Many of them have been carefully preserved, and may be seen to-day. They are generally fastened in the front by many buttons, and are made of materials never in common use in Japan.

In a play written long ago a line occurs with the words: “Love is a magnet”. And in one of the eighteen hereditary pieces of the Ichikawa family the theme of magnetism is dramatised.

Records are left to tell how various actors travelled to Nagasaki. This was not a theatre centre, and it may be surmised that the quest was made to obtain information from the Dutch, who were allowed to live at Deshima, a small island outside Nagasaki harbour. Here they were confined and allowed to trade, but were refused permission to put foot on the mainland. A gay dance known in shibai by the un-Japanese name of Kappore, is thought to have had a Western origin. Some actor or musician must have witnessed the sailors of a trading ship performing in a treaty port.

The treatment of the Chinese during the Tokugawa regime was much better than that meted out to the Dutch. The Ming dynasty in China was overthrown in 1644, and this brought many refugees to Japan. The Chinese were free to move about the country, to have their own quarters, and to build temples. Among them were traders, scholars, artists, and doctors. It is not unlikely that actors, or those familiar with the Chinese theatre, were also among the representatives of China in Japan at that time. Fenollosa mentions that complex Chinese movements of every variety were surging about Kyoto in Horeki (1751–1763), and that Japanese scholars obtaining painted scrolls and books in Nagasaki returned to Kyoto or Yedo laden down with them. Some indirect influence may have been brought to bear upon Kabuki and Ningyo-shibai from these sources.

Aragoto, or the rough acting of Ichikawa Danjuro, the first, was closely akin to the principles uppermost on the Chinese stage. His strange make-up, broad lines of black or red, or combinations of black, blue, and red, are acknowledged to have come from China, and other methods of making-up used on the doll-stage, later copied by the yakusha, are undoubtedly of Chinese origin, as may easily be seen by comparison with the present-day conventions on the Peking stage.

It was in the matter of stage costumes that Chinese influence was greatest. Weavers had been brought over from China in Hideyoshi’s time and were gradually assimilated with native workers. The making of textiles reached the height of development in the Genroku age. This importation of materials, rich in design and colour, had a remarkable effect upon the costumes of the Nō stage, and to a considerable extent also upon Kabuki and Ningyo-shibai. Rare stuffs, woollen and velvet from Holland, were worn on the stage; gold brocades and embroideries from China. Wigs were also greatly improved at this time, and beards, probably from the Chinese theatre, began to be used.

In the Kabuki chronicles it is stated that a painting of Ichikawa Danjuro, the second, was taken to China by traders plying between Nagasaki and the Chinese ports, and it seems likely that the yakusha became familiar with some of the favourite Chinese actors.

In his Notes on Japanese Drama in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, the late Rev. Arthur Lloyd suggests the possible influence of the West on shibai. He says:

“In 1603 the Spaniards had been fifty years in Japan, and they were not all priests and missionaries. Sailors and merchants came, too, many of whom would associate with Japanese, and some probably with Japanese of the class to which O-Kuni and her husband, the ex-samurai, belonged. Such men would naturally possess copies of some of Lope de Vega’s comedies, and thus may have come to Japan the seed from which grew the Kabuki theatre.”

This is pure conjecture on Mr. Lloyd’s part, but he used it to throw light on the proscription of Kabuki plays, and explained that there were other licentious practices in Japan in the seventeenth century which were not interfered with, and that the proscription would become intelligible and consistent if there was but a shadow of ground for suspicion that the shibai and the Spaniard were even remotely connected.

This view may be to some extent true, for the ever-suspicious authorities were aware that the best avenue for the forbidden knowledge to reach the people was the shibai, and hence their anxiety to prevent the spread of radical ideas. Many incidents attest to this watchfulness on the part of the officials. It is recorded that the father of the third Nakamura Utayemon received magic power from a foreigner in a rôle that required him to make a sudden transformation into a ghost.

Again, Tsuruya Namboku, a playwright who specialised in the ghostly, wrote a piece with a sea rover, Tenjiku Tokubei, as hero, and as it was necessary to effect a quick change in the stage management, the alert censor suspected that Namboku had secured his information from Christians, who were supposed to be devoted to magic methods. Namboku was arrested, but was released, as there was not sufficient evidence to prove that he had been in league with Occidentals.

Tsuruya Namboku created a character in Tenjiku Tokubei that has outlived generations of actors and remains popular with modern audiences. Tokubei sailed away on unknown seas to India and returned with wealth greater than that of a daimyo, many strange tales to relate, and curious articles to exhibit. Such a play must have been of lively interest to the shut-in people of Japan, who were gradually awakening to the attractions of the world without.

The costume of this sea adventurer is a most remarkable one, and no doubt reflects the knowledge of Western clothing as it existed in Japan a century ago, in Namboku’s time. It is a long coat of strange brown material, belted in at the waist with a brass buckle for ornament; the hat a circular affair banded with fur and crowned with a quaint top-knot.

He finds that the girl he loves has become the concubine of the feudal lord whose territory is adjacent to his village. Tokubei gains audience of the lord and with great pride exhibits his fire-sticks (matches), crocodile skins, sneezing powders (snuff), and perfumes. He discusses with his host how the conquest of India may be effected. But the conservative aristocrat turns a deaf ear to Tokubei’s tales, and accuses him of harbouring Christian heresies. Kicking aside his offerings the host leaves the room in disgust.

At home with his parents Tokubei is warned that the police are coming to arrest him for practising Christian witchcraft. In the last scene he appears on his scarlet sailing ship decorated with many brilliant colours. There is a fight on board, a pardon arrives from the lord, but at the same time he learns that his love, O-Tae, in despair, has taken her life.

His native land holds nothing for him—better far that he follow the fortunes of the sea. He gives the order to sail, and the big vessel begins to turn, creaking and straining until the prow projects well over the footlights, as though it would sail straight through the audience.

Tokubei stands at the prow reading O-Tae’s farewell letter, which is so long it reaches down over the side of the craft. The great white square sail is hoisted, and the vessel points out to the imaginary ocean, the gorgeous scarlet junk, with its sail full of the mystery of sea-going, recalling dim memories of pirate tales which charmed in childhood.

In an article contributed to a theatre magazine, Ihara Seiseiin tells how he discovered the plot of Romeo and Juliet in a comedy by Tsuruya Namboku, that indefatigable seeker after weird material for his plays. The coincidence is attributed to the fact that at the time the play was written, during Bunka (1804–1817), the Dutch were in Nagasaki and may have produced the play, a report of which eventually reached Namboku’s ears.

This work, says Ihara, was a comedy rather than a tragedy, and it was called by the fanciful title, Kokoro no Nazo Tokete Iro Ito (lit., The-Solution-of-the-Heart-Riddle-Coloured-Thread). The last two words of the title were suggestive of the thread shop kept by a widow named O-Ritsu, who had a beautiful young daughter, O-Chiyo, and also refers to the tangled strands of the plot. It was in five acts, the second and third showing Occidental influence. The head clerk, or banto, of the shop was a villain called Sagohei. But O-Chiyo had already bestowed her affections on a ronin, Honjo Tsunagoro. The mother, not in the secret of her daughter’s love affair, settled upon one Kambara Sagoro, and in spite of O-Chiyo’s unwillingness to accept this man as husband the mother went forward with the preparations for the marriage.

The scheming banto, who saw the pretty daughter as well as the prosperous thread business slipping out of his grasp, resorted to desperate measures, and consulted his confidential friend, a doctor called Torin. From him a quantity of poison was secured, but it possessed peculiar qualities, for like Juliet’s potion it produced sham death, and an antidote was to be administered that would bring O-Chiyo back to life.

The conversation concerning the poison was as follows:

Sagohei (turning to the doctor): I say, Torin-san, is this the poison I asked you to prepare?

Torin: Yes, it is. It is called Hammyo. I mixed it with suitetsu, hokyu, and sake, and it will kill a person in one minute. Should it succeed, the bridegroom will be turned out of doors, and you will take his place, also the thread shop will be yours. But I have an antidote that will revive the bride, and she will become your wife. The dead brought back to life! What a fine medicine I possess!

The banto received the deadly poison, and the doctor was just about to hand over the antidote when Sagohei was called away. At the same time the doctor received an urgent call to see a patient. There was nothing left for him to do but to trust the antidote to the little apprentice-boy of the shop.

This worthy went out to buy some pepper to be used in the soup at the marriage feast. When he returned, the boy gave the wicked Sagohei the pepper instead of the antidote, and as the condiment was opened in the dark both Sagohei and the boy sneezed a good deal.

Then came that moment in a Japanese wedding when the bride and bridegroom drink sake from the same cup. One sip of the poisoned sake and O-Chiyo fell dead.

The stage then revolved, showing the kitchen and the sorrowful mother holding an argument with Sagohei as to the disposition of the one hundred ryo that was part of O-Chiyo’s dowry. The mother wished to present it to a temple, but the clerk insisted it should be buried with her.

O-Chiyo’s lover next appeared—discharged from service under his feudal lord because he had been implicated in the loss of a highly treasured poem in the handwriting of the poet. This had been pawned, and in order to redeem it he was obliged to find 250 ryo.

The apprentice-boy threw away the antidote, thinking it was pepper and therefore of no further use now that a calamity had overtaken the house. Tsunagoro picked it up, and the boy told him that 100 ryo was to be buried with the body. A night watchman happened to overhear the boy’s words, and planned to rob the grave, Tsunagoro in desperate need of money decided on the same course. Both the doctor and the clerk had a similar end in view.

A graveyard is the next scene, O-Chiyo’s coffin in sight, while a dead patient has been interred, with O-Chiyo’s name placed over it. Tsunagoro watches, and when the doctor comes prowling about, knocks him out with a blow. At this moment O-Chiyo begins to groan. Tsunagoro wishes to give her the antidote but hesitates. Is it to be the money or the woman? After a struggle, he decides he cannot leave O-Chiyo to die, and so brings her back to life. She gladly parts with the money, but asks him to run away with her, as she does not wish to return home. This the ronin is in no mood to do, but finally they steal away arm in arm as the night watchman and the clerk attempt to rob the grave, and administer the pepper to restore the corpse to life which makes the two rascals sneeze prodigiously. Unlike the majority of Japanese plays that end in tragedy, Tsunagoro and O-Chiyo were married and lived happily ever after.

With such a play Tsuruya Namboku entertained Yedo audiences a hundred years ago.

Had shibai been wide open to the world, and relations with other theatres established, its character must have been entirely different. Very little evidence can be produced to show that either China or Europe exerted any considerable influence upon it.

Owing to its enforced seclusion of more than two hundred years, it was free to develop in its own way, and for this reason shibai may be regarded as one of the purest and most characteristic of Japan’s national institutions.