The one hundred years previous to 1868—the year Emperor Mutsuhito began his epoch-making reign—is regarded as the period of Kabuki’s modern history. By 1868 the Tokugawa Shogunate had come to an end, the Emperor had been restored to power, and his capital removed from Kyoto to Yedo, and Japan, which had been closed to the outside world, was thrown open to trade with other countries.
The Tokugawa Shogunate’s steadily diminishing power, and the general stagnation of society due to the lack of stimulus from without, were faithfully reflected in Kabuki. From 1764 to 1788 the people continued to idolise the favourite actors, the productiveness of the critics continued as before. But in the Kwansei era, 1789–1800, the theatre began to decline, and during the years of Bunsei, 1818–1829, the climax of Kabuki’s downward plunge was reached.
These were lean years for the people, and unless they saved their money they could not afford to attend the theatre, for the price of admission was high. It was the custom for Yedo people after they had seen a performance to go through the streets imitating the actors’ delivery of their lines, much as the popular airs of the latest musical comedy are heard in the thoroughfares of London, Paris, or New York. In these slack years the theatre audiences fell off steadily, and no echo of Kabuki was heard. At this time, too, the actors demanded an increase in their salaries, as it was impossible for them to carry on their former easy and extravagant existence during the hard times. The theatres were involved in greater and greater financial difficulties. Many of the good old theatre customs began to be neglected.
There was, however, no decrease in theatre genius, and very many actors rose high above their fellows, although they lived through an unprofitable period.
The most representative actor during Kwansei (1789–1800) on the stages of Osaka and Kyoto was Nakamura Utayemon, an actor of the same name and line being at present the senior of the Tokyo stage. This first Utayemon was the son of a physician, who had led a life of dissipation and finally took to the stage. He kept steadfastly to one specialty, that of katakiyaku, or villain rôles. When he played in Yedo he was well received, but on a visit to Osaka, he said something on the stage which offended his audience, and they returned the compliment by giving him the cold shoulder for some time. The famous bad characters of the doll-dramas he made his own, particularly the heavy villain Iruka, the formidable tyrant in Imoseyama, and the evil-doing but loyal Gonta of Sembonzakura, two characters that modern audiences are never tired of seeing portrayed. When he was 68 he gave his name to a follower; at 75 he played his best villains, and died three years later. Although a pupil succeeded as second, his own son became Utayemon, the third, and was an actor of great prominence.
Some years junior to the first Utayemon was Asao Tamejuro, who was a famous onnagata of the Kyoto and Osaka stages. He was a small man, possessed a light, bright style, and appeared best in plays depicting everyday life rather than those dealing with the unreal.
In Yedo also there were two bright and particular stars at this time. They were Nakamura Nakazo and Matsumoto Koshiro.
The career of Nakamura Nakazo is one of the most varied of all the actors. He was possessed of many theatre gifts, but he had inherited a samurai temperament and exercised his genius just when social conditions had begun to dampen the enthusiasm of the people for the theatre.
Nakamura Nakazo was the son of a ronin called Saito, and was born in Fukugawa ward of Yedo. Left an orphan when young, he must have had no relatives to care for him, but by chance O-Shun, a dancing mistress, saw the boy, and adopted him at the age of five. She went to pay her respects at a temple, and a ferryman plying across the Sumida River gave the boy to her. His only sponsor was the keeper of a sake shop, so far had fallen the child from his rightful position in society as the son of a samurai.
The dancing mistress not only belonged to a well-known school of dancing, but her family were costumers to the Nakamura-za. Her husband was a teacher of Nagauta, the special Yedo Kabuki music, so the boy was brought up in the theatre atmosphere. At 7 he began to be instructed in dancing, in which he did not take much interest at that early age, and he was often chastised. His adopted father tried to make him a Nagauta singer, but he proved a failure. From childhood he substituted on the stage when the regular actors were unable to attend. Nakazo has left a journal in which he wrote of his boyhood and how pleased he was when he was allowed to wear a good kimono, had a little room upstairs all to himself, and was not scolded so much for his many lapses from grace. O-Shun, his adopted mother, saw to it that he grew up proficient in dancing, and he repaid her, for he was very graceful, and was often asked to perform at the residences of the nobility when they entertained.
His accomplishments included familiarity with the Nō, writing and fencing, and he learned how to perform on the drum of the Nō orchestra, that instrument of complicated rhythms. He married O-Kichi, the daughter of the third Kineya Kisaburo, a member of the leading family of theatre musicians that flourishes to-day. When his adopted mother died, his wife, O-Kichi, took her place, and taught the samisen, while he taught dancing.
On the stage he took part in dangerous feats—in which, had the arrangements failed, he would have been killed. His wife became ill and luck went against him. He attempted to commit suicide; he drank and gambled and led a dissipated life, which led to endless money troubles, and now and then he was forced to make geta, or wooden clogs, for a living. His difficulties lasted for twenty-four years, but gradually he reformed, began to study, and became a pupil of the fourth Danjuro.
His face was his fortune, and perhaps because of his handsome appearance his fellow-actors were often jealous of him. He was proud and sensitive and easily given to quarrelling. The change for the better in his career was a decided contrast to his previous melancholy existence, for he became the chief actor of Yedo, and received a salary of 1000 ryo.
Then, when it might have been expected that he would throw his gains away, he began to save. The wife of his youth died, and he soon possessed himself of another. He started a new theatre, and fire burned it down; rebuilt it in summer, and that autumn his house was inundated. Gave his name to a pupil and took it back, and at last was so unsuccessful in every venture, he determined to change his luck by acting in Osaka and Kyoto. In Osaka he was successful, but in Kyoto he quarrelled over a money matter, and died soon after at the age of 53—a samurai to the end, hot-tempered, and ready to fight at a moment’s notice.
His style of acting was similar to that of the second Danjuro, but it was in Kabuki’s music-posture pieces, or shosagoto, that he was at his best.
The fourth Matsumoto Koshiro, who acted on the Yedo stage at the same time as Nakazo, was born in Kyoto, and also led a troubled life. He acted at the Ichimura-za, but was not a success, and his elder sister, who owned a theatre tea-house, advised him to give up his attempts on the stage, and take over the management of her business. Later on he must have proved his worth, for the fourth Danjuro took him under his patronage. He was not on friendly terms with the fifth Danjuro, which caused a good deal of Yedo gossip. The Ichimura-za could scarcely maintain itself, and the salaries of the actors were not paid. Koshiro went to Osaka by ship, taking with him the Yedo onnagata, Iwai Hanshiro, and some one thirsting for revenge because Koshiro had insulted another actor, threw stones at him as he was departing.
In Kyoto, where he acted, feeling was stirred up against him and he was not popular. To increase his troubles the Ichimura-za went bankrupt. Towards the end of his career, he and the fifth Danjuro, who had so long been estranged, became good friends. One of his sons became a famous actor, and succeeded him as Matsumoto Koshiro, the fifth.
In the period that followed, the most popular actor was Ichikawa Danjuro, the fifth. He was the son of the fourth, and his mother was the adopted daughter of the second. He acted with Nakamura Nakazo. His wife was the daughter of Iwai Hanshiro, but they did not get along well together; she wished for a divorce, and they lived separately. Finally he married the widow of Ichikawa Yaozo. At 51 he retired to Mukojima across the Sumida River from Yedo, where he drank sake, wrote poems, and wore a patched kimono of many colours, refusing to meet theatre folks. One of his sons, to whom he gave the illustrious stage name of Ichikawa Danjuro, the sixth, died young, and another of his sons became Danjuro, the seventh.
The most famous actor of the Bunka-Bunsei period (1804–1829) in Kyoto and Osaka was Kataoka Nizaemon, the seventh, directly descended from the Genroku actor who founded the line. Born in Kyoto, he became a follower of Nakamura Nakazo, but for some reason master and pupil parted company. He was very large and stout and well adapted to play villains, which was his specialty. Everywhere he acted he was popular.
He was active on the stage until the age of 75, when he played in a rôle that required that he should appear scantily clothed. Some one in the audience called out to him: “Be careful not to take cold!” to which the veteran replied: “When I am on the stage, I don’t feel cold, I perspire.” Death claimed him but a short time after his retirement. His own son died, and he adopted the actor who later became Kataoka Nizaemon, the eighth.
When Nizaemon, the seventh, was acting in Osaka and Kyoto, the star of Yedo during the corresponding period of Bunka and Bunsei was the third Bando Hikosaburo, youngest son of the eighth Ichimura Uzaemon. In later years he shaved his head, retired from the world, and lived in Honjo, a Yedo ward, where he posted up a notice on the gate to the effect that waste-paper dealers and actors were not allowed in. He was handsome and gifted, and died at the age of 75. Acting with him was the fifth Matsumoto Koshiro, son of the fourth. The fifth Koshiro had a very large nose and his eyes were close together, two facial defects the print artists were fond of depicting, so that this Yedo actor is easily picked out in the pictures illustrating the theatre of this time. His daughter married the seventh Danjuro, but was divorced and became a nun, and lived at Ikegami near the Nichiren temple, not far from modern Tokyo.
Also, about this time there was Onoe Kikugoro, the third. He was a specialist in sewamono, or plays of everyday life, and established traditions that are being carried on by his descendants to-day. His wife O-Kiku was the daughter of an actor, and he had three sons and two daughters, but the sons died in youth. Koshiro’s daughters both married actors, one to Ichimura Uzaemon the twelfth, and the other to the fourth Kikugoro. His grandson by Uzaemon was the fifth Onoe Kikugoro, the rival of Ichikawa Danjuro, the ninth—the two great stars of the Meiji era. His great-grandson is Kikugoro, the sixth, one of the most energetic actors of the contemporary Tokyo stage.
At one time the third Kikugoro thought he would try what it felt like to be a plain citizen of Yedo. He opened a mochiya, or cake shop dealing in a favourite refreshment of his day, as it still remains of Tokyo people—steamed and pounded rice moulded into mound shapes, and prepared in various ways. He hung out a shop sign, in shape sexagonal, lacquered in red, and adorned with a gold design of grasses and written characters signifying Mochiya Kikuju, or the Chrysanthemum-Long-Life-Mochi shop. It was not true to its name. Inside the place there were costly art objects, and rare dwarf plants, while a mechanical toy, a Chinese boy, moved by a special device, came to meet the guests as they entered, and brought them tea and cake.
Of course, Kikugoro was the object of the visitor’s interest, and the matter of cakes was of much less importance. The actor would sweep the garden and talk with the visitors, but one day he suddenly tired of the whole scheme, after some customers had purchased a particularly small amount of his cakes. Kikugoro is said to have exclaimed: “They have seen my beautiful garden and listened to my compliments, and paid only 64 mon for cakes, so I’ll go back to the stage.” Perhaps he was hankering after it anyway, and made this an excuse.
From the latter part of Bunka and Bunsei to Kaei, or from 1804 to 1848, the great actor of Yedo was the seventh Danjuro, grandson of the fifth, the sixth having died young. He went on the stage at the age of four, and when he started to cry, a convenient substitute was hurried up. At the age of 17 he succeeded to the ancestral name. At the age of 42, he was exiled by the Governor of Yedo because of extravagance on the stage, since he had used real armour, and the stage setting for one of his plays had been an exact reproduction of the interior of a mansion of the aristocracy. Forbidden to come within a ten ri radius of the town, it meant that the Yedo stage was not to know him for many a year.
He was small, and had large eyes, and was very similar to his son, the ninth Danjuro, whose memory is cherished by many Tokyo playgoers to-day. Like all the members of his family, he showed a special leaning towards aragoto, and added to the family plays by adapting the Nō drama to Kabuki. He is said to have combined the strong points of the third, fourth, and fifth in this actor line, and had literary talent, composed poems, and wrote a diary called Tokumiyemasu, I Can See Afar.
He took unto himself three wives and three concubines. His first wife was the daughter of the fifth Matsumoto Koshiro. She had been the wife of Sawamura Sojuro, had married again, and her third venture was to marry the seventh Danjuro, but this union did not last long, and they were divorced. Danjuro, who was very courageous, married another daughter of Koshiro, divorce separating them again, due this time to disputes between Danjuro and Koshiro. For his third wife he picked out the daughter of a theatre tea-house proprietor. He had seven sons and five daughters. There was, therefore, every reason to believe that the Ichikawa clan would survive for years to come. The fate of the family was otherwise, for not only is there no Ichikawa Danjuro at present, but the sole blood link as representative to carry on this family is the little granddaughter of Danjuro, the ninth.
The seventh Danjuro was famous for his extravagance. His residence was more beautiful than that of a daimyo, and no doubt the Yedo authorities, ever alert to suppress luxury among the people, were ready to pounce upon him, using some pretext or other in order to hold him up as an example to be avoided.
When he was obliged to go into exile his eldest son had the responsibility of carrying on the affairs of the Ichikawa family in Yedo, and succeeded as Ichikawa Danjuro, the eighth. He gave every sign of great promise, but because of family and professional troubles committed suicide in Osaka.
The fifth son of the seventh Danjuro inherited the headship of the family after the tragic death of the young actor who had been called Ichikawa Danjuro, the eighth, for such a short time. Ichikawa Danjuro, the ninth, became the most famous actor of this line, and he brings us down to modern times. Danjuro, the seventh, had a number of followers who distinguished themselves. Among them were: Ichikawa Kodanji, the third; Ichikawa Monosuke, the fifth; and Ichikawa Danzo, the fifth.
As the leading yakusha passed away one after another, the only one considered capable of filling the place they had left vacant was the fourth Nakamura Utayemon.
His father kept a theatre tea-house in Yedo, and his mother was related to Fujima Kanjiro, the costumer and dancing teacher. It was natural that this Utayemon should take to dancing, and he was trained to become a teacher of dancing. At the age of 10 he was adopted by Fujima. When the famous third Utayemon was about to produce a certain play in Osaka, he did not have the correct costumes and sent for his Yedo costumer. It was a month’s journey from Yedo to Osaka in those days, and it was Fujima’s adopted son who travelled along the Tokaido on the mission. While very youthful he knew all the needful information regarding the costumes, and was helpful in many ways.
He remained in Osaka, where he became a student of the stage and made rapid progress. The famous onnagata, the fourth Iwai Hanshiro, had asked him to fashion a costume, but did not like the manner in which it had been finished, and not only scolded the lad, but boxed his ears into the bargain. The desire to get even for this insult made the fourth Utayemon ambitious to succeed on the stage.
After an absence of sixteen years, he returned to Yedo a finished actor. At the age of 39, the third Utayemon did him a great honour by conferring his name upon him. A deshi, or follower, of the third Utayemon was righteously indignant, since he considered the third Utayemon’s adopted son should have succeeded. There were hot disputes among Utayemon’s followers, and at last he invited them all to his house, and said: “I will not give my name to Hichitaro, but I will give it to his art.” The fourth Utayemon was large of stature, had fine eyes and good features, and excelled his master, the third, in many respects.
His rivals were the fourth Bando Mitsugoro and the fifth Sawamura Sojuro, but he won for himself a higher place on the stage than either of these Yedo actors. His adopted son was a star of the Meiji era, who was succeeded by the present Nakamura Utayemon, the veteran onnagata, who has the position, both from service on the stage and for his art, as head of the Tokyo stage.
Utayemon the fourth’s two rivals were the fourth Bando Mitsugoro and the fifth Sawamura Sojuro. Mitsugoro, the fourth, was the adopted son of the third. He suffered from paralysis and was frequently away from the stage, and yet in spite of his physical disability continued to act supported by a kurombo, or black-robed property man. He was known for his literary talents, wrote poetry, and the chroniclers say he was always poor.
The fifth Sawamura Sojuro was the son of a servant in a chaya of the Ichimura-za, and his mother was the daughter of a farmer living at Kameido, the district of modern Tokyo famous for its wistaria garden. He seems to have been a pet of all the actors, and became a pupil of the fourth Sojuro, who died at the age of 21. The third Onoe Kikugoro said he would make an actor of him. Matsumoto Koshiro also lent him his patronage, and took him to Osaka where he remained to study. Sojuro, the fifth, had four daughters, and two sons, one of whom, the second Tannosuke, became a star of the Meiji period.
These actors did not enjoy the prosperity of their predecessors. The theatres had a hard struggle for existence, the players were always involved in financial difficulties. The stage grew dull, the playwright stale. The Tokugawa Shogunate was toppling to its fall, and the whole country waited for the restoration of the Imperial power, the breaking down of the barriers that had prevented relations with other countries, and the birth of modern Japan with its remarkable changes and developments.