WAKASHU KABUKI: THE YOUNG MEN’S STAGE
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.
[Illustration: THEATRE TREASURES EXHIBITED. At the Nakamura-za,
founded by Saruwaka Kanzaburo, the gifts given to him by the Shogun
were considered as treasures of the theatre and exhibited on certain
anniversaries with much respect, the actor holding the gold sai, or
battle signal, and covering his mouth with a piece of paper lest
he should breathe upon it. (Colour print by Hasegawa Kanpei, the
fourteenth, and Torii Kiyosada, father of Kiyotada.)]
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.
[Illustration: Crest of Ichimura Uzaemon (Orange and leaves).]
[Illustration: Crest of Kataoka Ichixo (Leaf of Icho tree).]