The first Kabuki theatre to be founded in Japan in which performances were given by companies composed entirely of men was started in the third year of Genna, 1617, by Dansuke, who seems to have been an enterprising manager. It was Dansuke who formed companies of women from the pleasure quarters of Kyoto, and who was invited by no less a personage than the great daimyo, Date Masamune, to bring his players to his feudal capital, Sendai. Dansuke also established a company of female players in Osaka, but he is known chiefly in the history of Kabuki as the founder of the first male theatre.

The tercentenary of this historical event was not allowed to pass unnoticed, and in December 1917 the establishment of Dansuke’s male theatre and the three hundred years of Kabuki development were celebrated by special performances given at the Minami-za, in Kyoto, where Nakamura Ganjiro, Osaka’s leading actor, and Matsumoto Koshiro of the Imperial Theatre, Tokyo, played together to commemorate the event.

Kyoto slumbering in its wide valley, enclosed by its templed hills, once the scene of great theatre activity, is now far surpassed by the stages of Tokyo and Osaka, but the leading actors of these two cities met to celebrate one of the most important anniversaries in the history of the Japanese theatre.

It was before mixed companies were prohibited that the male theatre took its rise. Handsome youths had taken part with the women players, and the separation was an easy step.

With the strict prohibition of the Onna Kabuki, these young male players were left in entire possession of the field, because the chief players were youths, the entertainment they afforded was called Wakashu Kabuki, or Youths’ Stage. Numbers of these theatres arose in rapid succession in the three theatre towns, and even spread to the provinces.

In Osaka the first Wakashu theatre was established in 1624, while Saruwaka Kansaburo founded Yedo Kabuki, or the Yedo Stage, in the same year.

From Dansuke’s first theatre in Kyoto there grew seven flourishing theatres. And they might have gone on increasing, but the authorities considered it safer to place a limit on these places of amusement, and licences were granted to seven persons who were considered the descendants of the first theatre proprietors in Kyoto who had acted in the imitation Kyogen during the intervals of O-Kuni’s dances. These men were retainers of the Ashikaga Shogunate, and when this regime came to an end they were obliged to take up Kabuki, the new entertainment of the people, as a means of livelihood, and became managers of theatres. If they had been in the service of the Shogun, who was the chief patron of the Nō, they must have been entirely familiar with the Nō stage, and so introduced much of this older theatre art into the newly developing stage of the people.

In Osaka, also, theatres grew apace and were finally limited, but it was in Yedo, the capital of the newly established Tokugawa Shoguns, that the theatres made greatest headway.

Saruwaka Kansaburo founded the first theatre in Yedo in 1624, when he established the Saruwaka-za. Nine years later, Miyako Dennai started the Miyako-za, and the following year Murayama Matasaburo opened the Murayama-za. Still later Yamamura Kobei erected the Yamamura-za, and these were for some time the chief theatres of Yedo.

With regard to the stage performances there was very little difference between the Onna Kabuki and the Wakashu Kabuki—the young actors always appeared as the stars, while the older actors had to be content with minor rôles. The handsome youths, attired in female costumes, with long sleeves that swayed with their movements, wearing their hair arranged in the most fetching fashion, carried on O-Kuni’s dancing traditions. These had originated in the descriptive dance, or posture movements, of the Nō, while the comic plays, more or less based on the Kyogen, as performed by the older actors, soon began to change into something special that was to develop still later into the varied forms of the Japanese drama of the present. The dances largely borrowed from the Nō also underwent gradual transformation into the Shosagoto, or modern music-drama, that more closely resembles a Western ballet than any other Occidental stage form.

The externals of the Wakashu theatre were also the same as those of O-Kuni, except that the bamboo fence had given place to a more substantial wooden one, and a gallery had been introduced for the entertainment of high-class patrons. The drum tower of O-Kuni’s theatre remained and persisted long after the entire construction of the theatre had been changed, becoming in time more elaborate and permanent.

The most interesting person of this period is Saruwaka Kansaburo, Yedo’s first actor-manager. Many details of his career have been handed down, while the facts relating to the theatre proprietors of Osaka and Kyoto are both meagre and vague.

Kansaburo, like most of the theatre men of his time, came from Kyoto to Yedo. He was of good stock, one account stating that he had sprung from the lord of the castle at Numadzu in Suruga Province, called Nakamura. However, a more reliable record appears to be that handed down by his posterity, that the family was descended from a daimyo called Nakamura, a follower of Hideyoshi, and that a member of this family, Nakamura Jiyemon, came to Yedo, became a ronin, and married his daughter to Saruwaka Kansaburo, who took the name of his father-in-law. The name “Saruwaka” was given to the comic actors who acted with O-Kuni, and as Kansaburo excelled as a comedian, he took this as his stage name.

Kyoto was the home of refinement and culture, but the political centre had shifted to Yedo, and was swarming with ronin, or independent samurai who were not attached to any particular feudal lord. They all drifted to Yedo to seek their fortunes, and Kansaburo saw a chance of utilising these wandering spirits. The reasons which led to his establishment of a theatre are given in a book he wrote called Temaye Miso, which being interpreted means: “My own bean soup”—in other words, “talking shop” about his profession. In this he says that as the ronin from different parts of Japan assembled in Yedo after the fall of Osaka Castle, when Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi, perished in the flames, and Iyeyasu became the ruler of feudal Japan, there were many soldiers of fortune who had been deprived of their living and were so reduced that they were obliged to beg for food from door to door, reciting utai, or choruses of the Nō, to the accompaniment of the tsuzumi, or small drum of the Nō stage. He planned to employ these strollers by starting a theatre and giving them an opportunity to make use of their Nō training.

In consequence the Saruwaka-za was established in 1624 at Nakabashi, near Kyobashi, in Yedo, and while Kansaburo waited for his application to erect a theatre to be granted, he dreamed that a white crane with a branch of icho, the tree with fan-shaped leaves, in its mouth, entered his house from the summit of Mount Fuji. This was a lucky dream indeed; and proceeding forthwith to a diviner for explanation, he was told it was a good omen, and that his request would be granted. Accordingly, after the theatre was constructed, he had placed on the curtain hung around the drum tower over the entrance a design of a crane, which came to be associated with Yedo theatres for many years afterwards. Also, on the curtains hung at the entrance and within the theatre, he used the design of an icho leaf.

An incident in Kansaburo’s career shows the importance in which he was held, and proves the position of the actor, who had not yet come to be regarded as a despised class as in after years.

In 1633, when the Shogun’s pleasure boat Atakamaru entered Yedo Bay from Shimoda in Izu Province, Kansaburo was summoned and ordered to stand at the bow of the vessel and to sing a sailor’s song. By way of reward he was presented with a sum of money, a coat used in battle, and other military gifts. While it was common at the time to refer to actors as “riverside beggars”, the treatment accorded Kansaburo was a special honour to his profession, and was remembered long after when the playfolks were regarded as social pariah.

In the following year Kansaburo and six actors of his theatre were invited to the palace of the Shogun, where they performed Kansaburo’s own play, called Saruwaka, and several other pieces, and were given fine clothing and money. These articles have been preserved and handed down from one head of the family to another, and were on exhibition at the Imperial Theatre during January 1919, when Nakamura Akashi, the fifteenth, performed Saruwaka, the hereditary piece of his family, in memory of the founding of the Yedo Kabuki by his ancestor Kansaburo.

This play Saruwaka concerns the adventures of a retainer who goes on a journey to Ise without his master’s permission, and returning, to avoid punishment, assumes a disguise, and so cleverly entertains him with stories of his travels that the daimyo forgets to take him to task. It smacks of the Nō Kyogen, and reveals the inspiration the early Kabuki received from the Nō theatre.

Kansaburo was to attain to even higher honour in his old age. In 1657 there took place what is referred to as the Great Fire of Meireki, when the business portion of Yedo was burned down, including the four chief theatres and many minor ones. As there was little hope that they would be rebuilt quickly, Kansaburo decided to visit his old home in Kyoto, and journeyed thither with his second son, Shimbochi. While there he was invited through a Court noble to perform his piece Saruwaka before the Imperial Court.

Just as he was about to begin he found that he had forgotten to bring an obi required for his costume, and the Court noble who had introduced him took a red cord and tassel attached to a thin bamboo curtain near the Mikado, and gave it to the performer who wore it during the play. As it was far too long and dragged upon the floor, Kansaburo was obliged to put one end around his neck. Ever after he wore the cord and tassel rather than an obi when he performed in this piece, and passed it on to his successors so that it became part of the conventional Saruwaka costume.

On this occasion Kansaburo was given a black velvet haori, or over-garment, adorned with a crest that had as a design three leaves, and he also received a rich kimono embroidered in gold and silver. His son Shimbochi was only nine years at this time, and he danced in a piece called Shimbochi’s Drum. The Emperor was so much pleased with the child’s performance that he exclaimed: “Akashi! Akashi!”—Never tired of seeing! This cognomen was bestowed upon the boy by the Emperor. Like the costume and the cord and tassel, this name became hereditary in the family. The present Nakamura Akashi, now living in Tokyo, is over seventy years of age, and the fifteenth of this actor line.

Kansaburo died soon after his return to Yedo. His second son inherited his name, but died young, and a cousin became the third Kansaburo, while the fourth was Nakamura Denkuro, a famous actor of the Genroku period. Kansaburo had two brothers, one of whom was a Nō Kyogen actor, Kanjuro, while the other was Kineya Kangoro. The grandson of Kineya Kangoro, called Kineya Kisaburo, first introduced the samisen into the orchestra of Kabuki, and is the founder of the Kineya line of musicians, who have been connected with the theatre ever since, and are to-day the chief house of Kabuki musicians.

In Ayame Gusa, or the Sayings of Ayame, concerning the ideas of Yoshizawa Ayame on the theatre in general, and the onnagata specialty, of which he was a genius, in particular, he writes about the treasures of the Nakamura-za, Kansaburo’s theatre. When he founded the first theatre in Yedo he called it the Saruwaka-za, but his descendants later changed the name to Nakamura. Here for 150 years, says the Ayame Gusa, the treasure of the theatre was a gold sai, a duster-like equipment of war used for signalling in battle by the warriors of Old Japan, consisting of a short handle with stripes of thick gold paper attached. This had been presented to Kansaburo when he sang a sailor’s song on the Shogun’s pleasure craft as it entered Yedo Bay. Still another article treasured by the Nakamura-za was a costume of gold brocade worn in the piece Saruwaka, also a fine bamboo screen presented to Kansaburo by a daimyo, and a drum from some equally exalted personage.

With regard to the other theatre proprietors of Yedo, Miyako Dennai obtained permission to build a theatre in 1633, and the following year Murayama Matasaburo erected the Murayama-za. He was the younger brother of Murayama Matabei, the actor-manager of Kyoto. Both had come from Sakai, the old seaport near Osaka, which flourished greatly when it was opened to Western trade, and declined when the Tokugawa policy closed the country to foreign intercourse. Their father had been a retainer of the Ashikaga Shogunate, and was a follower of Nagoya Sansaburo. Yamamura Kobei was given permission to build the Yamamura-za. Kawarasaki Gonnosuke established the Kawarasaki-za in 1648. He was a Nō actor, but later went to Yedo from the provinces and started a theatre.

Not only did the theatres increase in numbers in the three towns, but they spread to the provinces as well. The audiences received better accommodation, curtains and stage furniture began to be used. Theatres had been somewhat like side-shows, and the audience changed at the end of each performance, which continued indefinitely, but with improvements in all directions plays of several scenes began in all three theatre centres.

It was in 1644, when the Wakashu Kabuki was in full swing, that another prohibition by the Government laid it low for the very same causes that had put Onna Kabuki out of existence. The charming young actors were responsible for moral abuses that undermined the Spartan code of the samurai. There was a scandal because of the relations between a daimyo’s wife and a young actor, and the Government, always on the alert to punish the sins and omissions of the theatre, ordered that the front hair of the Wakashu actors be shaved off. Shorn of their locks they no longer presented an attractive appearance, and as they had existed only to please through their persons their usefulness was gone. The prohibition of the Wakashu Kabuki was a blow at the luxurious and effeminate habits that were then indulged in by the samurai and aristocracy. Wakashu Kabuki had much to do with the spread of these habits, and to suppress them was then considered the only remedy against the social evil of the time.

The prohibition of Wakashu Kabuki in Osaka and Kyoto differed from that of Yedo. A quarrel of two samurai over a young actor playing a female rôle took place in Yedo. The theatre was closed, and on this account the doors of all the other theatres were shut. As they did not reopen for long years, the actors were in dire distress.

In Osaka the theatres were closed in 1656 because of a disturbance in the audience, but permission was given to continue the following year. The Kyoto theatres, however, went out of existence for twelve years, and it was only in 1668 that Murayama Matabei, Kyoto’s actor-manager, was allowed to restart.

Not much is known about Matabei, quite contrary to the case of Saruwaka Kansaburo of Yedo, but an interesting side-light is thrown upon him by Kabuki Koto Hajime, or Beginnings of Kabuki, which says that Murayama Matabei asked the governor when he was going to pay his respects at Gion; meaning by this, at what time the theatres of the Gion district in Kyoto were to begin again, but the governor withheld his consent. Thereupon Matabei followed him to his residence, and slept under the eaves, where he was exposed to rain and his clothes were spoiled so that he became ill and thin as a ghost. His followers brought him food, and afterwards his patience was rewarded, for his petition for the reopening of the Kyoto theatres was granted.

While Kansaburo is remembered as the founder of Yedo Kabuki, as well as for all his honours and triumphs, Matabei, the Kyoto actor-manager, in his long fight for his profession will endear himself to all lovers of the theatre.

Although the authorities of the day may have thought it expedient to do away with the theatre, not caring to admit that such an institution is a necessary part of life and cannot be destroyed, yet something must be said for their attitude. They felt obliged to keep order, as the theatres had become unruly places where the new turbulent spirit of the people was finding expression, and might have gone beyond the bounds if left unchecked.

Mr. Ihara, in his comments on the abolition of the Wakashu Kabuki, expresses the belief that this strict measure had unexpected benefits. Onna and Wakashu Kabuki had made an appeal merely to the eyes and ears, and personal attractiveness was the main object. In consequence, inexperienced youths held the centre of the stage, while mature actors were obliged to serve as foils.

With the abolition of Wakashu Kabuki, Yaro Kabuki, or the Men’s Stage, came about, but this term was used only for a short time to distinguish the performances from the Wakashu. Yaro Kabuki was the second epoch in the male theatre that with great strides was to develop conventions, ceremonies, customs, actors, plays, and playwrights, such as have made Kabuki a thoroughly characteristic institution of Japan.