EXTERNALS OF SHIBAI
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.
[Illustration: A Kaomise, or Face Showing ceremony at the Nakamura-za
in 1772. By this time the roof of the stage had disappeared and only
its symbol remained over the front of the stage, which now approached
the long narrow style in vogue in the Doll-theatre. (Colour print by
Utagawa Toyoharu.)]
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.
[Illustration: Interior of the Nakamura-za in 1798 when Ichikawa
Danjuro, the sixth, was promoted to the head of the theatre. By this
time the roof of the stage had become a decoration overhead. (Colour
print by Utagawa Toyokuni.)]
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.
[Illustration: The largest Nō theatre in Japan, that of Onishi Ryotaro
in Osaka, a modern construction combining architectural features
representing the different periods of the Nō theatre development.]
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.
[Illustration: Crest of Jitsukawa Enjaku (Double well-head).]
[Illustration: Crest of Nakamura Fukusuke of Tokyo (Back of plum
blossom).]
[Illustration: Crest of Onoe Baiko (Chrysanthemum and leaves).]
SAKUSHA