For a faithful preservation of the stage of the Murayama-za, one of Yedo’s first shibai, modern playgoers are indebted to a play within a play. It concerns Banzuiin Chobei, a plain citizen of Yedo who was treacherously done to death by an evil samurai, and brings to mind the turbulent Yedo days when the samurai tested their new swords on such loiterers as happened to pass their way, while the otokodate, or chivalrous commoners, were ever ready to take the part of the oppressed, and risk their lives in crossing swords with the blustering soldiery.
Chobei and Mizuno happen to meet in the Murayama-za. The play is progressing on the old-fashioned stage, patterned so closely after that of the Nō theatre. Four pillars support a heavy sloping roof that is constructed like the entrance to a temple. The stage is square, the musicians kneeling at the back. A long bridge passage joins the stage at right angles—the hashigakari of the Nō theatre.
The characters in the play are a youthful hero in gorgeous attire and a timid onnagata listening to an argument between a peaceful priest clad in scarlet and Kimpira, the grotesque, bloodthirsty hero of the old ballads.
Guards are stationed on either side of the theatre near the stage proper to preserve the peace. Looking down on the stage to right and left are upper boxes hung with fine bamboo curtains for such members of the privileged classes as may attend. For audience there are the playgoers of Tokyo. And when all eyes are focussed on the stage of the Murayama-za, a character in the play, a drunkard looking for a quarrel, swaggers in along the hanamichi and causes a disturbance. Chobei suddenly appears, springing out of his seat in the pit, and as if by magic the twentieth century is wiped out, and the playgoer travels back into the past, and for the moment is immersed in the very atmosphere of the old Yedo shibai.
This early Yedo stage showed scarcely any difference from the type in vogue during the Onna Kabuki and Wakashu Kabuki periods, and was in all essentials like that of O-Kuni Kabuki with the exception that it was of a more permanent construction.
There was, however, no roof as a protection against the weather. The pit was of beaten earth, and the groundlings had a straw mat apiece and were provided with a small hibachi, or brazier, Tickets were purchased for the whole or half day, or for one act. But evidently the theatres knew how to charge,—a matter that is not overlooked even at the present,—for in an old book it is mentioned that it was necessary to pay even to light one’s tobacco. These lights were called fire-ropes, a twisted cord of rice straw set on fire and left to smoulder, a convenient manner of starting a pipe in the days before matches, when the only means of producing fire was by striking the flint.
During the first years of Genroku, a roof to cover the audience was built, and galleries added for the accommodation of the increasing attendance. The construction of the theatre made great progress when Government regulations demanded that playhouses be of one story and straw mats used to keep out rain and sunshine.
After the segregation of the Yedo shibai to Sakai-machi, many improvements came about. The Ichimura-za used drop as well as drawn curtains, and large stage furniture was seen for the first time.
But by 1750 the main externals of the shibai were fixed and showed a striking change. The bridge passage of the Nō used by shibai for entrances and exits had given place to the hanamichi, or flower-way—the continuation of the stage through the audience. There were galleries behind which were sliding doors and movable screens of fine bamboo, ensuring privacy for those occupying these elevated seats. In Yedo three galleries were a feature of the shibai, but these were not seen in Kyoto and Osaka. This was because the Yedo playhouses enjoyed greater prosperity and were more crowded than those of the other towns. Drawn curtains were used, the stage was decorated with artificial flowers, and elaborate stage furniture came into use.
Owing to the scandal of Lady Yenoshima and Ikushima Shingoro in 1714, the architecture and developments of shibai externals received a severe check. Substantial roofing was forbidden and straw mats were ordered instead. The building was limited to one story, and galleries were abolished. As the result of a petition filed by the three chief theatres in 1718, permission was granted to cover the theatres with boarding, and afterwards, when frequent fires threatened to destroy these flimsy erections, more substantial structures were allowed with tiled roofs, and thick mud walls, like those of warehouses, or godowns, in which valuables are still stored. Until recent years this type of playhouse persisted in the three towns.
One of the most interesting facts concerning the development of the externals of shibai was the rapidity with which the stage outgrew its original form.
The place for performances in the Nō, later in O-Kuni Kabuki, and likewise in the first Yedo theatres, had all been square. Greater space was needed for the representation of complex plays, and the back pillars were eliminated. When Chushingura was to be presented in Yedo in 1757 the two large front pillars to right and left of the stage were found to be in the way, and were sacrificed. With the four supports gone, the temple-like roof of the stage also went out of commission. This roof, associated with the Nō stage for hundreds of years, and about which clung something religious and sacred, had so long been a familiar external of shibai, that the theatre people, while realising that it had served its purpose, did not wish to part with it altogether. It was therefore represented in relief, projecting over the proscenium.
Nowhere is this adaptation of the stage to the new requirements of a developing drama more clearly to be seen than in the illustrations of shibai left by the print artists. A picture attributed to Masanobu shows the interior of the Nakamura-za in 1740. The thatched roof of the stage is still in existence, as well as the two front-pillars, but those at the back have disappeared in order to give greater room. Slightly elevated to the left is a platform for the musicians, and although the square platform had not been dispensed with, it was becoming too cramped.
In this picture the second Danjuro appears in one of the family pieces, Yanone, or Arrow-Point, acting on a small apron-like projection of the stage. His big three-rice-measure crest is clear upon one shoulder, and in front of him there is an exaggerated whetstone on which he is about to sharpen a huge arrow. The small enclosure in which he sits represents the temporary dwelling-place of this highly imaginary character. There are two galleries, and a narrow passage-way through the pit, while lanterns bearing the actor’s crest are suspended from the ceiling.
Practically the same scene is represented in another colour print by Masanobu of the Nakamura-za interior four years later, in 1744. A near view of the stage is obtained, but it shows no change. Actors of the Ichikawa and Otani families hold the centre of the stage. In the background is the bell which shows the piece to be Dojo-ji, the music-drama Kabuki appropriated from the Nō relating to a female demon that comes to wreak vengeance on the new bell of the temple, Dojo-ji, which has just been hung. Segawa Kikunojo, the onnagata, stands on the hanamichi representing the fascinating maiden who is the evil creature in disguise.
Still another colour print by Nishimura Shigenaga, of the Nakamura-za in 1749, shows a sudden transformation of the stage. The two front pillars and the heavy roof that had come to be an encumbrance have disappeared. In this picture the piece represented is Takeda Izumo’s Chushingura, enacted with so much success by the marionettes that the real actors sought to emulate them. Sawamura Sojuro, popular as Yuranosuke, the leader of the loyal Forty-seven Ronin, and Ichikawa Ebizo are the central figures. The musicians have been relegated to a position in the wings; there are screens for background, and a curtain to the left bears the icho-leaf emblem adopted by Nakamura Kansaburo, the founder of Yedo Kabuki, after his lucky dream.
Practically the same theatre interior is reproduced in a print of the Ichimura-za made in 1752, with the exception that the curtains on either side of the stage show the crest of this theatre, a conventional orange with its leaves.
In a colour print by Utagawa Toyohara in 1771, the stage of the Nakamura-za has lost all connection with its square origin. In this picture there are seen the two hanamichi, large and small, that are still a feature of the modern shibai. Another picture by the same artist done in the following year shows a Kaomise, or Face-Showing ceremony, at the Nakamura-za, and perspective is used to suggest the spaciousness of the interior. This is evidence of the complete transformation from a square to a long stage parallel to the audience. The picture is one of the series depicting eight famous places of Yedo.
The Kaomise, or Face-Showing ceremony, with Danjuro, the sixth, as leading actor at the Nakamura-za in 1798, also forms the subject of a print by Toyokuni, which shows that the externals had by this time become permanent.
This transformation of the stage within a short period, approaching in its essentials the Western theatre, would lead to the supposition that outside influence was at work. But the cause lay nearer at home. It was the stage of the Doll-theatre that eventually prevailed. This was long, low, and deep, to afford ample room for the complicated movements of the marionettes, the combined efforts of groups of doll-handlers, and for the comings and goings of the property-men and scene-shifters.
In order to cope with the plays introduced from the realm of puppetry, the externals of the doll-stage were adopted, and the only link with the origin of shibai on the banks of the Kamo River in Kyoto was the roof-symbol placed in a position of honour as decoration above the new stage.
The two most striking features of the interior of the theatre brought into use with the changed form of the stage were the hanamichi and the revolving stage.
The hanamichi, or flower-way, was a continuation of the stage through the audience, a place for entrance and exit, where the intimacy of actor and audience was firmly established.
As to its origin, there is an opinion that it was a path leading to the stage through the pit, bordered on either side by a low bamboo fence decorated with flowers. There is also the idea that it came about to accommodate admirers of particular actors who started the custom of bestowing gifts upon their favourites. According to the ceremony of the East, their presentations were elaborately wrapped up, the string that tied the parcel was decorated with an artificial flower, and for the bearer of these gifts a regular path was made connecting with the stage.
These are fanciful ideas that can hardly be justified. For the presence of the two hanamichi in shibai shows conclusively how consistently the Kabuki actors and playwrights conformed to that inherent desire of the audience to be on intimate terms with the gorgeous personages of the theatre.
When the bridge-stage connecting with the square platform, purloined from the Nō theatre, was abandoned, the hanamichi, raised just above the heads of the playgoers, was substituted, an audience stage designed for striking entrances and sensational exits, a place to display to the fullest extent beautiful garments, fascinating actors, to intensify emotion, and heighten a dramatic situation.
In the same manner, the revolving stage became of great assistance in staging the long plays with many acts, for while the actors were playing out in front, the carpenters were busy with their creations behind, and the change of scene could be quickly effected.
With long use it developed a special technique, and was turned to suit a variety of landscape and architectural requirements. It has been very largely responsible for the undeniable beauty of Kabuki settings. This was acquired in the same manner as so many other good things of shibai that had not emanated from within; it was borrowed from the Doll-theatre. Among the complex apparatus of the Doll-theatre was found the revolving stage long before it came into the possession of Kabuki.
Outside the shibai, the most characteristic feature was the yagura, or drum-tower. This was a small square platform built out from the roof and above the main theatre entrance, where was placed the big drum used to announce the opening of the shibai. Around it on three sides a curtain was stretched, bearing the crest of the theatre. This had been used by O-Kuni and Nagoya Sansaburo when they established their new entertainment, and it was supposed to resemble a castle tower with a battle drum. It was the custom to erect five spears in this tower, which Kabuki Koto Hajime, or Beginnings of Kabuki, mentions as representing five retainers who held the lances for their feudal lord. But the origin of the yagura is vague.
Since the time of O-Kuni, however, until the present, it has continued to adorn the outside of the theatre, and although it is seen no more in Tokyo, in the shibai of Kyoto and Osaka it is still preserved. The drummer no longer beats his signal from the big-drum tower, but he now performs this duty within the theatre just previous to the drawing of the curtain, making a stirring sound that causes playgoers to hurry to their seats with pleasurable anticipations.
By the middle of Meiji a flood of Western stage ideas had begun to inundate Japan. Imported styles of theatre architecture, together with externals, now threaten to supersede those that are so thoroughly characteristic of shibai and have been in existence for so long. Old shibai is passing. It seems but a matter of time before the picturesque externals developed in the three towns in the brave days of old shall have vanished from the land.