Kabuki

The actors were their own playwrights in the early period of Kabuki, for the pieces they produced were the result of collaboration. They planned, altered, or improvised as they felt inclined.

Previous to the Genroku age which produced Chikamatsu Monzaemon, who stands head and shoulders above the dramatists of Japan, both for the quality of his work and for the number of pieces he produced, there were two pioneer writers of plays—Fukui Yagozaemon, in Osaka, and Miyako Dennai, in Yedo.

Yagozaemon was the first Kabuki playwright of importance. He wrote Hinin no Adauchi, or The Beggar’s Revenge, in three acts, in the year 1664. Plays up to this time had been limited to one act. The convention of the Nō stage to give but one-act pieces had been established long before Kabuki was born. Yagozaemon’s departure from all precedent was something of an innovation, and the piece met with great success.

It had for plot the adventures of a samurai who disguised himself as a beggar in order to take revenge upon an enemy, but was himself attacked by the man whom he sought. The piece had qualities of longevity, for it has remained a favourite with actors for the past 250 years, and is at present one of the best plays in the repertoire of Nakamura Ganjiro of Osaka. When he acts the beggar, Ganjiro resurrects the Kabuki of Yagozaemon in a vivid manner.

Middle-aged female characters were Yagozaemon’s specialty, and he was considered an encyclopaedia on theatre matters, for no young actor was supposed to know his art unless he had studied under him. By means of his plays he was largely instrumental in adding lustre to the careers of the actors Fujita Koheiji and Araki Yojibei, as well as Kaneko Rokuyemon, for whom the Beggar’s Revenge was especially written.

In the same year that Yagozaemon produced his continuous play, Miyako Dennai wrote Imagawa Shinobi Guruma in two acts, that was produced at the Ichimura-za, in Yedo. It concerned a loyal vassal by the name of Imagawa Toshihide who, while making an effort to save the life of his lord, was injured and carried home by his wife, the title meaning, Imagawa in Disguise in a Cart.

And it was in this piece that Ichimura Takenojo played. He was the nephew of the first Uzaemon, the proprietor of the Ichimura-za, but shaved his head and became a Buddhist priest.

Rapid development in settings, costumes, and plays had already begun when Miyako Dennai wrote this play, for at the end of each act a black curtain was let down, and during the interval when the next scene was being prepared a dance was performed. Stage furniture was used and many improvements carried out in stage settings.

An actor who studied under Yagozaemon, called Kaneko Rokuyemon, had two followers, Tominaga Heibei and Kaneko Kichizaemon, and both of the latter became well-known playwrights.

Heibei has left no record as an actor, but he was the first to separate the two professions, making them distinct from each other. In 1680, Heibei signed his name as a playwright on the banzuke, or illustrated announcement of the plays. The theatre folk considered it a very presumptuous proceeding, and Heibei was cordially disliked for putting himself forward. Yet by so doing he definitely disconnected the two professions.

He lived until the middle of the Genroku age, when playbooks began to have wood-cut illustrations. Some of his works have been preserved, in which there are complicated plots of fair ladies, gentlemen ready in the use of swords, revenge, women disguising themselves as men, and males masquerading as women, the appearances of ghosts, all of which appear to have been popular Kabuki themes in Heibei’s time.

Towards the end of his career, Heibei’s plays were not successful, and he was advised to write better ones. According to the Kokon Yakusha Taizen, or Account of Ancient and Modern Actors, Heibei is said to have replied to the criticism levelled at him by saying that it was not right to compose uninteresting plays, at the same time it would be the greatest good fortune for the theatre proprietor if there were always good plays. But before the audience grew tired of good plays, the grass would grow in the Dotombori canal (which waterway the Osaka theatres all faced in these old days as they do at present). Heibei must have been confronted by the same problems that beset the modern playwriter all over the world.

More is known of Kaneko Kichizaemon than of Tominaga Heibei, although they were both pupils of Kaneko Rokuyemon. Perhaps it is because Kichizaemon wrote later than Heibei, beginning in the middle of Genroku, in Kyoto. He was an actor, and ranked as a dokegata, or comic specialty, and was criticised adversely because he made his own part prominent in the plays he wrote.

The most significant fact in relation to Kichizaemon is that he collaborated with Chikamatsu Monzaemon in writing for the most outstanding actor of Kyoto during Genroku, Sakata Tojuro. They first began this collaboration in 1699, at the Miyako-Mandayu-za in Kyoto, and it lasted for ten years, when Kichizaemon continued to write for Tojuro’s successor, Yamashita Kyozaemon, and Chikamatsu threw in his lot with the marionettes, leaving for Osaka, where he produced pieces in rapid succession for the Doll-theatre. His plays written for the doll-actors were the first real contribution to Japanese literature that a playwright had made.

Kaneko Kichizaemon wrote two volumes called Jijinshu, or Collection of the Year’s Dust, little stories about actors in which he played Boswell to Tojuro’s Johnson, recording this famous actor’s words and advice and handing down a vivid impression of the man. It is to be regretted that he has not treated us to similar glimpses of his co-worker, Chikamatsu, but the latter had not then distinguished himself, and it can easily be understood how Kichizaemon worshipped the great actor for whom he wrote, and put down his sayings about the theatre and his art as though they were oracles.

There is one passage in Jijinshu which shows Chikamatsu Monzaemon and Kaneko Kichizaemon at work. We read:

“One day Chikamatsu and the author collected the actors in the gakuya, or dressing-room, and told them about the play. Those who had received good parts praised it, but those who had rôles not to their liking did not say anything. Those who could not decide whether the play was good or bad looked at the faces of the other actors and sided with the majority. And those who were ignorant and did not understand good plays, became cross and scolded the servants, and left the gakuya or dressing-room without saying good-bye.

“At this time Tojuro was zamoto, or stage manager, and if he did not give an opinion no one would say anything. He would address the actors: ‘Now, you actors, practise your parts well,’ and so would take his departure. The actors would begin to rehearse from the next day; they learned their rôles in four or five days, and as soon as they had learned one play they would begin another. And when this new play was given to the actors, Tojuro said he wished to have it explained once more, after which he did not say anything with regard to his rôle.

“The character he was to play required him to wear high rain clogs and a wide straw hat, so he ordered these properties to be made, and when they were handed to him put them on and said: ‘Now give me my lines,’ and Chikamatsu Monzaemon gave them to him. ‘This is a good play,’ he said. ‘When I first heard it I thought so. Some plays are greatly admired by the audience, while others are not popular. Now I am over fifty years, and yet I am unable to criticise the play, or tell whether it is good or bad, for had I known how to criticise plays I might have become an extraordinary person by this time. Before I began to learn the words I wore the geta and took the stick. It is better not to criticise at first, but to try and understand.’”

Kichizaemon concludes by saying: “Whenever a rôle was given to Tojuro, whether short or long, good or bad, he always studied it carefully”.

The giant among the playwrights of his time was Chikamatsu Monzaemon, but as his best plays were written for the Doll-theatre, he does not rightly belong to an account of Kabuki playwrights. It is true, however, that the great influence his compositions had upon Kabuki, even to the present day, can hardly be over-estimated.

His real name was Sugimori Nobunori, and the little town of Hagi, in the Province of Hizen, that has produced so many men famous in Japanese history, regards him as an illustrious son. This is disputed, since several other villages in different parts of the country also put forward claims as to Chikamatsu’s birthplace. Even his last resting-place is not known, for his grave is found in two places, the cemetery of Hyomyo-ji, a Buddhist temple in Osaka, and in a village near this city. And so the greatest playwright of Japan, who wrote more than one hundred plays, was born and died in obscurity. It is thought that he was an illegitimate son, since there seemed to have been some cloud upon his life. The Sugimori family were of good repute, and served the lord of Hagi.

In his youth Chikamatsu entered the temple named Chikamatsu, at Karatsu, in the province of Hizen, and it was from this temple that he took his professional name later in life. While dwelling there he must have laid the foundation for that large knowledge of Buddhism, history, and literature he displays so abundantly and convincingly in his plays. The calm of the Buddhist retreat soon became monotonous to his vigorous spirit, which sought for new worlds to conquer. He went to Kyoto, where he remained for some time with a brother, then entered the service of the noble house of Ichijo, where he became familiar with the customs and ceremonies of the aristocracy, and more particularly with the traditions of the Nō, which influenced his earlier writings greatly. When he severed his relation with this princely establishment, he had conferred upon him a certain rank in acknowledgement of his service.

So little is known concerning Chikamatsu’s life that it is impossible to conjecture the reasons that led him to write for Kabuki, and associate with the “riverside beggars”. His first success was at the Miyako-Mandayu-za, Sakata Tojuro’s theatre. Kokon Yakusha Taizen, or Account of Ancient and Modern Actors, a chronicle of the theatre, published in 1750, records that Chikamatsu surprised the audience by a novelty, in the form of the ghost of a Court lady called Fujitsubo that came out of wistaria flowers and was transformed into a snake. People in the audience were so pleased they shouted: “Monzaemon! Monzaemon!”

In spite of his apparent popularity, Chikamatsu had a sudden change of heart, and at the age of 38 he left for Osaka there to collaborate with Takemoto Gidayu, the Doll-theatre minstrel. What was Kabuki’s loss at this time proved to be a gain later on, for his masterpieces were absorbed by Kabuki and generations of actors since Genroku have performed the varied characters of his plays.

A brother, with whom Chikamatsu had stayed when he first went to Kyoto, was a medical authority in his day, who had published books on medical subjects, and also works on history. This younger brother once suggested to Chikamatsu that he could utilise his talent to better advantage than in writing for the Doll-theatre, as we are told by Dr. Fujii in his Life of Chikamatsu. But the latter retorted that the profession of writing plays might be less harmful than the writing of treatises on medicine, because in the latter case misprints or errors might prove very harmful to the lives of men.

Chikamatsu took his materials from all sources. He helped himself liberally to the plots of the Nō drama and of Nō Kyogen, Buddhist sermons that were recited to popular tunes, songs of the people, children’s airs and even vulgar ditties, while the songs of folk-dances he used to advantage. He was a scholar, familiar with the Chinese and Japanese classics, and learned in Buddhism. But he always aimed to make the common people understand, and considered that the lower classes were his regular audience and chief patrons. He died at 64, in 1724, having written steadily for thirty years, composing one hundred and thirty pieces.

When Chikamatsu Monzaemon was engaged in producing his plays for the Takemoto-za of Osaka, a playwright who attempted to rival him was Kino Kaion. He had been a priest, and was a man of culture, but his knowledge was not so deep as that of Chikamatsu. Ten years younger than Chikamatsu, he wrote for twenty-five years, producing forty plays. But there are few masterpieces among them.

After Chikamatsu’s death Takeda Izumo, his most brilliant pupil, became the head of the Takemoto-za. Although Takeda was not so prolific a writer as was his master, several of his plays may be said to surpass the best pieces of Chikamatsu, particularly his Chushingura, also Terakoya, or the Village School, that fine scene in the long play concerning the exiled Michizane, a high official of the Imperial Court, victim of an intriguing enemy a thousand years ago. Most of Takeda Izumo’s plays were appropriated by Kabuki, and are still played by the real actors as well as the puppets.

The rival Doll-theatres, the Takemoto-za and the Toyotaki-za, brought about two camps of playwrights, and their keen competition supplied a large number of plays. At the Takemoto-za, which always attracted to itself the greatest number of talented workers, there were after Chikamatsu and Takeda Izumo—Hasegawa Senshi, Miyoshi Shoraku, and Matsuda Wakichi. Chief among those who wrote for the Toyotaki-za were Kino Kaion, Nishizawa Ippu, Tanaka Senryu, Namiki Sosuke, and Yasuda Abun.

Very few details have been handed down regarding these writers, but their plays are eloquent testimony to their genius. When the Ningyo-shibai was on the decline Chikamatsu Hanji wrote a number of plays that helped to stem the tide of misfortune.

Such an array of first-class writers cannot be found in the annals of Kabuki. Indeed the dolls and their plays were the real foundation of the Japanese stage, and even to-day it is these plays, repeated over and over again, that please both actors and audience. The men who wrote that the dolls should become radiant figures in a world created by their imaginations, left behind them a richer legacy of plays than did the sakusha of Kabuki. Succeeding generations of actors have acted in them, for they are plays that never lose their power to please; their vitality remains undimmed by the passage of time.

Among the many talented as well as minor writers who were inspired to compose for the marionettes, Chikamatsu ranks first, Takeda Izumo second, and Chikamatsu Hanji third, judging by the number of their plays that became the property of Kabuki and have withstood the shocks of time.

The Genroku age, which produced Chikamatsu, Sakata Tojuro, and Ichikawa Danjuro the first; which saw the rising tide of talent in all directions and a deepening of the consciousness of the people, also witnessed an increased activity in the production of plays. And one characteristic of these pieces was that theatre managers were often responsible for plays, while many of the actors composed for themselves.

Saruwaka Kansaburo, the founder of Yedo Kabuki, had been a playwright as well as the proprietor of his theatre, the Saruwaka-za, afterwards the Nakamura-za. Sadoshima Saburozaemon owned a theatre in Osaka, and also wrote his own plays. After Miyako Dennai in Yedo, there was Kawarasaki Gonnosuke, who wrote a play about the revenge of the Soga brothers that was a great success. The name Kawarasaki Gonnosuke has been intimately connected with the history of Yedo Kabuki, and was inherited by a modern actor. There was Nakamura Hichisaburo, the rival of the first Ichikawa Danjuro in Yedo, whose play, Keisei Asamagatake, or The-Lady-of-the-Gay-Quarters-Mount-Asama, brought him a wonderful success.

Fukuoka Yagoshiro was an actor specialising in old men’s rôles in Kyoto. He recorded the opinions of the noted onnagata Yoshisawa Ayame, in his Ayame Gusa, or the Sayings of Ayame, concerning the secrets of onnagata acting, for which he is better known than for the plays he left to posterity. And there was Midzushima Shirobei, who was a tatayaku, or chief actor, as well as a sakusha. He was a patron of Yoshizawa Ayame.

Miyasaki Denkichi, who played with Ichikawa Danjuro, the first, and who was implicated in a Yedo nunnery scandal with another leading actor, Yamashita Kozaemon, also wrote his own plays and was often assisted by his son, Sakakuyama Kanpachi, who was a sakusha.

But of all these actor-playwrights, by far the most interesting and significant was Ichikawa Danjuro, the first. The eighteen hereditary pieces of the Ichikawa family to-day are the treasures of Kabuki, reflecting much of the vanished taste and style of these old days.

More than half of these eighteen pieces were originated by the first Danjuro, and among them is Kanjincho, adapted from the Nō, and unquestionably the most perfect music-drama of Kabuki. Kanjincho (the name for a Buddhist scroll, in which the donors to a temple building fund were recorded) was first played by Danjuro in 1702, and the popularity of the piece was so great that the theatre was crowded daily. The first performances continued for 150 days—an unusually long run for those times, and gained the nickname, Oshiai Yunidan, or the To-Crowd-Together-Play. Danjuro had a nom de plume, Mimasuya Hyogo, and this he used when signing his plays. In the composition of the Ichikawa plays, Hayakawa Dengoro is said to have had a hand. He was the son of an Osaka theatre proprietor, and played upon the Yedo stage, appearing in the specialty of a katakiyaku, or villain. He collaborated with Danjuro in the play in four acts about the revenge of the Soga brothers, a piece which attracted great attention. Other of the Ichikawa plays owed much to this sakusha, and even Nakamura Hichisaburo was indebted to him for assistance in the composition of his piece, Keisei Asamagatake.

Adzuma Sampachi was a dokegata, or comedian, and wrote plays, and towards the end of his theatre career devoted himself exclusively to writing for the stage. At one time he presented a piece to the actors, and it was refused. Nothing daunted, he re-wrote again and again, presenting it six times. On the seventh trial it was appreciated, and the actors apologised and thanked him for his work. It was his custom to go out in a kago, or palanquin, slung on poles carried on the shoulders of bearers. He would pay the kago men to take him out into the country, or to some place of interest. On excursions of this kind he gained his ideas, and when his plan for a play was complete he gathered the actors together and began rehearsals. The piece by which he is best known is Yaoya O-Hichi, or O-Hichi, the Daughter of the Vegetable Dealer, based on a Yedo story of a girl who, in order to see her lover, committed a capital offence, setting fire to her father’s house, for which she suffered the death penalty. This play still remains a favourite on the Tokyo and Osaka stages. The critics of Sampachi’s time described him as utterly ignorant, that he pandered to the popular taste, and did not rank high among the sakusha.

Contemporary with these men, there was Nakamura Denkichi, who was the first professional playwright in Yedo. Before him the actors had combined in themselves the two professions, but Denkichi confined himself exclusively to writing. He was a cousin of Nakamura Kansaburo, and studied for the stage under Nakamura Denkuro, but abandoned it.

He considered that plays should above all please the eyes, and be written so as to be understood by women and children. Although his pieces were not distinguished for literary qualities, they made up for this lack in the spectacle provided for the eye. Denkichi must have been a better stage manager than a writer of plays, for under him the settings made great improvement.

At this time, there was Arashi Seisaburo, an illegitimate son of the second Nakamura Kansaburo, half-brother of the leading actor, Nakamura Hichisaburo. He collaborated with Danjuro, and one of his best plays is Ryujo Sanjuniso, or the Thirty-two-Faces-of-a-Dragon. There were also Nakamura Seigoro, a follower of Nakamura Denkichi, and Tsuuchi Jihei.

Kabuki’s wholesale borrowing of plays from the Ningyo-shibai began in 1717. The play that started this movement was Kokusenya Kassen, or The Battle of Kokusenya, by Chikamatsu. It had as hero a warrior whose mother was Japanese and father Chinese. The warrior went over to China to restore an emperor to the throne, performing the most amazing feats. The piece was full of Chinese ideas, and as a breath of the outside world, must have been appreciated at this time.

Whatever the attraction of this Chikamatsu piece, it ran for seventeen months at the Takemoto-za, the Osaka Doll-theatre. The second Ichikawa Danjuro gave this play in Yedo, and it was produced in Osaka and Kyoto. After this all the plays that proved successful in the Doll-theatre were quickly adapted to the needs of Kabuki.

Namiki Shozo (1730–1773) was one of the most prominent sakusha in Kyoto, during the middle decades of the eighteenth century. He studied under one of the best Ningyo-shibai playwrights, Namiki Sosuke, and wrote for the dolls as well as for the actors. In his time the vogue for the Doll-theatre had already begun to wane, and allured by the superior attractions of Kabuki he wrote more for the latter than for the dolls. His plays were full of complicated situations that tested the actor’s ability, a technique he had acquired as a result of his apprenticeship to the ningyo school, which demanded many situations to keep the movements of the marionettes full of significance, for otherwise their dollships would have become all too apparent.

In Osaka during the Horeki period the leading sakusha was Nagawa Kamesuke, and he was followed by Tatsuoka Mansaku and Namiki Gohei. Mansaku was the son of an onnagata, and lived in Kyoto until he was 51 years of age, when he went to Osaka. He died at 68, in 1809. His talent was best expressed in historical plays, but as the authorities prohibited the use of real facts upon the stage, he contented himself with making over historical events, which he did in a way very satisfactory to the playgoer.

Namiki Gohei, born in Osaka in 1747, was the chief playwright of his time. His plays were so much in demand in the theatres of the three towns that he travelled back and forth a great deal. He was patronised by Sawamura Sojuro, the third, and also wrote for the third Onoe Kikugoro. Banzuiin Chobei, written for the fourth Ichikawa Danjuro, remains exceedingly popular at the present day, showing the democratic leaven that was working in Japan in Gohei’s day. This is among his best pieces.

Chobei was an otokodate, or brave commoner, ever ready to champion the cause of the weak and down-trodden citizens, often the victims of the tyrannical two-sworded gentry. He incurred the enmity of an evil samurai, who put him to death. This was a theme to stir the audiences of Osaka and Yedo.

After the death of the third Sojuro, Namiki wrote for his son, the fourth Sojuro, and for the fifth Matsumoto Koshiro. As he had been an actor in his early days, he knew something of the stages of Osaka and Yedo, that had many different characteristics, and he combined the two. His play, written around the ever-verdant story of the Soga brothers’ revenge, one of the most fruitful sources for the Kabuki’s sakusha’s inspiration, was so popular that it was given for many years at every Yedo theatre on the New Year programme, and the custom was only discontinued at the beginning of Meiji. In using historical material, Gohei felt the cramping influence of the authorities, and he skilfully combined the true with the false facts of history. Popular rumours of the day, gossip that went on round the hibachi in the dwellings of Yedo, were prohibited from finding representation on the stage, and consequently Gohei utilised the talk of the town as false reports, and the audience knowing the true inwardness of things that had been circulated far and wide, could easily understand his references.

That the business of playwriting was not very lucrative seems to be suggested from the fact that Gohei once kept a tobacco shop in Osaka, later becoming a seller of sake. In Yedo he also opened a little medicine shop and sold pills, an old-fashioned Chinese remedy for colds.

His excursions into business could not have been to his liking, but due rather to forced circumstances, since he is on record as having said when he sat down before his desk: “All the world is my own. No enemy is near me. All the actors are my own, and I can use them as I like.”

A Yedo playwright some years younger than Namiki Gohei was Horikoshi Nisanji, but his plays have not been handed down as have been those of his more popular Osaka contemporary.

Nisanji was followed by Sakurada Jisuke, who became the first playwright of Yedo, and wrote during a period of forty years. He was associated with such distinguished actors as the fifth Ichikawa Danjuro, the fourth Matsumoto Koshiro, the first Nakamura Nakazo, and the fifth Iwai Hanshiro. He excelled in plays depicting real life, or sewamono, and took his characters from the varied life about him,—handsome young samurai, heroines of the gay quarters, and brave men of the people. The play of his that has lived longest is Sukeroku, one of Kabuki’s most characteristic pieces, with scenes laid in the gay quarters, and Sukeroku, the very personification of bravery and loyalty, as the hero.

The periods of Bunka and Bunsei, or from 1804 to 1817, saw the beginning of Kabuki’s decline, and for fifty years before the Restoration in 1868 there was little development. It was a time of stagnation, and the people shut up within their own country were beginning to suffer from lack of outside stimulus. A distinct loss of originality began to show itself in the theatre, and there was a dearth of good playwrights, while the Doll-theatre had taken a plunge downward, and there was little activity among the writers for the marionettes. Kabuki had depended largely upon the Doll-theatre playwrights, and failing these fell back upon dramatisations of popular fiction. The novels of Bakin, Tenehiko, and Kyoden were dramatised for the stage.

Although the theatre had become more complex, and material for plays was abundant, the period did not produce the playwright. The position of the sakusha, which in the beginning had been of great dignity, changed for the worse. They became mere slaves of the actors. There was a stage writer called Nagawa Shimesuke, son of the keeper of a theatre tea-house, who did not create, but patched and altered at the bidding of the actors, so that he was nicknamed Sentaku-ya Shimesuke, or Laundry-Man Shimesuke, which gives a good idea of the playwriters’ low estate at this time.

Nagawa Tokusuke gave up the priesthood to become a playwright. He had been connected with a country temple, and went to Osaka to learn how to write. There were so few sakusha at this time, that the third Nakamura Utayemon invited him up to Yedo, and was so anxious to encourage him, hoping that he would prove to be a goose to lay golden eggs in the way of popular plays for the actors, that he bestowed upon Tokusuke the precious family pen-name of Issen, used by the first Utayemon when he signed his poetry. One of his plays was a failure, which disconcerted the actors to a considerable degree. He returned the literary nom de plume with which his patron Utayemon had honoured him, and departed whence he had come. Thereafter he wrote pieces for side-shows, set up along the banks of rivers, on temporary sites in the compounds of shrines, or at cross-roads. At last he shaved his head and retired as the keeper of a tea-house in Kyoto, dying at 79. So the sakusha, like the yakusha, had their falls from favour, and their lives often ended in disappointment.

The third Utayemon wrote his own plays, but did not have good luck in the sakusha whom he engaged to help him,—Nagawa Seisuke. He did his best with Nagawa’s poor compositions, but the latter possessed inferior ability. On one occasion the playwright became angry because his ideas had not been carried out properly, and he drew his sword to kill Utayemon, when he was stopped.

Tsuruya Namboku stands out from among these unsatisfactory writers, and several of his plays are regular features of the modern stage. He was the son of a dyer in Yedo, wrote especially for the third Bando Hikosaburo, and was particularly successful in ghost plays. Onoe Matsusuke and Onoe Kikugoro, who were in their element when playing ghostly rôles, shone in Namboku’s compositions. The most familiar of his plays to modern audiences is Yotsuya Kaidan, or The Ghost of Yotsuya, the latter a certain quarter of Yedo that remains to-day one of the thriving centres of Tokyo. Namboku was a genius in the invention of stage apparatus to make his supernatural characters more gruesome, and Yotsuya Kaidan is an example of his skill in overcoming mechanical difficulties.

He caused O-Iwa, the weird heroine of this play, to make her entrance upon the scene through a large lighted lantern, and disappear through the solid wall, etc. Once he pasted black paper all over the stage to fashion the body of a whale, and a Jonah-like actor stepped out of it carrying a crown. The audiences of his time were quite carried away by the boldness of his ideas, and his works have a lasting quality, for their power to make the flesh creep is undiminished.

It was the lot of the sakusha to be poor, and Namboku was no exception. An incident is told of him that during a period of poverty he was kneeling in front of his little writing-desk, when his wife entered and asked for the wherewithal to buy some rice. He had no money, so she took the mosquito net, an indispensable article in a Japanese house in warm weather, and went to the pawnbroker, where she exchanged it for sufficient coin of the realm to keep the house supplied with rice for a short period. Namboku made good use of this domestic episode, and has immortalised it in Yotsuya Kaidan. The long-suffering O-Iwa is cruelly treated by her husband that she may leave the house, as he wishes to marry another woman, younger, prettier, and richer in this world’s goods. In his attempt to get rid of her he sells everything in the house piece by piece, the mosquito net among them, hoping by his callous cruelty to drive her away.

Namboku died at the age of 75, in the compound of the well-known Fox Shrine in Fukugawa, a ward of present-day Tokyo. He had a son who succeeded him, and who became adviser to the seventh Danjuro. The latter was a quick writer, and specialised in plays that had the gay quarters for settings.

A quaint character among these pre-Restoration playwrights was Hanakasa Rosuke. This was not his real name, but rather a theatre nickname, Flowery-Straw-Hat-Rosuke, given him because of his habit of going about in extraordinary clothing. He generally wore a gaudy kimono, yellow velvet tabi, or socks, and on his head a wide straw hat adorned on top with artificial flowers, in imitation of a festival reveller in the cherry-blossom season. He was the eldest son of the chief doctor of the Takeda Clan, and had been bred in a samurai atmosphere. He was also something of a scholar, but never became a first-class sakusha.

Rosuke went to Osaka and wrote for the theatres there. He returned with the seventh Danjuro, when this great actor was allowed to return to Yedo, after the long exile imposed upon him for extravagance. Later, Rosuke wrote for the third Kikugoro, but he spoke against Kikugoro’s son, and was requested to cease composing plays for the Onoe family. Again he left Yedo, and went to Osaka, where he died in poverty at the age of 76.

For many years after Namboku Tsuruya, there were no playwrights capable of filling his place except Mimasuya Nisoji, who gained a position in Yedo because of his long service to Yedo Kabuki. For twenty years Nisoji wrote for the third Kikugoro, the fourth Nakamura Utayemon, and the seventh Danjuro, but his work consisted largely in revision. He belonged to a wealthy family and began to write for his own amusement. On account of extravagance and dissipation, he was sent away from his home, and died in his seventies.

Nisoji and Namboku were great friends, and they played practical jokes upon each other. Namboku was once slightly ill and Nisoji asked a Court doctor to go and examine him. A kago, or palanquin, carried on the shoulders of six stout bearers proceeded to Namboku’s humble dwelling. The Kabuki sakusha had received no warning of the Court physician’s visit, and was greatly surprised. Taken unawares, he got out of his bed and bowed low on the mats. When the great medical man took his departure, the kago bearers asked for money, but the maker of plays was incurably poor, and could only pay a small portion of the kago men’s demands.

In order to get even with Nisoji, Namboku planned a counter joke. There was a certain shrine in Shinagawa, a suburb of Yedo, where the spirit of the famous general, Kato Kiyomasa, was enshrined, and it was Nisoji’s habit after visiting the shrine to repair to a tea-house in the vicinity. There was some gossip that Nisoji had carried on a flirtation with the daughter of the tea-house keeper, and Namboku ordered a lantern to be made bearing his friend’s crest together with that of the tea-house maiden, and hung it up in front of the shrine. Nisoji was much perplexed, and acknowledged that Namboku had evened up the score.

The second Namiki Gohei was the second son of a vassal of the Shogun. He was expelled from his house because of dissipation and association with actors. The third Gohei was a follower of the first Namiki, and it was he who collaborated with the seventh Danjuro in giving the finishing touches to Kanjincho, Kabuki’s music-drama masterpiece.

Nishizawa Ippo was the grandson of a novelist and kept a bookshop. He had many literary friends, and wrote plays, but there are few genuine pieces of his left, as they have been patched and altered, there being no protection for plays, and no conscience about changing them to suit the requirements of the actors.

Segawa Joko kept a gofuku-ya, or drapery shop, in Yedo, and wrote plays because he felt an inclination to do so. Finally he was persuaded to give up his business, and he became a tate sakusha, or chief playwriter. He sinned in verbosity, and the actors tired of his long speeches. It might have been better for Joko’s peace of mind had he continued to deal in kimono and obi. His specialty consisted in dramatising the stories related in the yose, or places of amusement where the professional story-teller held forth. The eighth Danjuro was successful in some of these pieces, and they are still favourites with playgoers.

The last sakusha to shine before the dawn of the Meiji era was Sakurada Jisuke, who was born in 1802 and died in the tenth year of Meiji, 1877. He was associated with actors and literary men for forty years, and during most of his career he was head of the Yedo playwrights. He wrote many plays, and among them are a number frequently given by the actors of modern Tokyo and Osaka.

The little eccentricities of the sakusha were long remembered after they had passed away. Sakurada Jisuke had a habit of frequently moving his residence. He would make a hole in his cupboard through which his rice was poured by the delivery boy from the rice shop, as he did not like people to see how much he had ordered at a time. But while he was parsimonious in some matters, in others he was prodigal. He lived in Mukojima, across the Sumida River from Tokyo, and at times bought a whole bag of charcoal, for use in the hibachi, to warm himself in the boat that took him across the river—just to make a show. The trip across the river was brief, and he was well aware he required but a small portion. When an old farmer came selling squash, Jisuke purchased his entire stock-in-trade and then presented him with one of the vegetables as a reward, after which the countryman spread the tale of the sakusha’s generosity.

It was a time when the fortunes of the sakusha were at the lowest ebb, when writers for the theatre were entirely subordinate to the actors, and yet the dignity of his profession must have been felt by Jisuke, for it is reported that he resented being placed under young actors. After Jisuke, the most prolific stage-writer was the second Kawatake Shinkichi, better known in his later career as Mokuami, who belongs more appropriately to the story of Meiji Kabuki.

When dying, Sakurada Jisuke expressed a last wish:

“Do not have Buddhist ceremonies or anniversaries for me, but be careful not to neglect Yedo plays.”