III
For the exploitation of the unreal we must turn to the jidaimono. The audiences of Old Japan did not bother their heads if the plot of a play was so complex that they really could not remember where it began and how it ended, to judge from Kokusenya Kassen, or the Battle of Kokusenya, a jidaimono by Chikamatsu Monzaemon that enjoyed unbounded popularity when first produced in 1710, and continues to hold its own, proving its lasting qualities.
Like Tennyson’s Brook, the complicated characters in this piece come and go, and the play goes on for ever; in consequence, modern audiences must witness it piecemeal, since it is only the doll-actors that are able to give the play in its entirety, and even they must be active from morning until late afternoon if they are to act all the scenes in this queer old Chikamatsu drama.
Fashioned out of the cloth of exaggeration, Chikamatsu’s hero, Watonai, has no kinship with human beings; his fierce countenance showing broad red and black markings, the bushy hair, the outer costume of purple covered over with a design of twisted rope in white, the inner garment of scarlet studded with brass buttons, the huge curved sword—Watonai might as well belong to the theatre of the moon, since he has nothing in common with ordinary mortals.
Watonai’s father was a faithful minister of a deposed Ming Emperor, who took refuge in Japan, and married a woman of Kyushu. Their son, fired with enthusiasm to go to his father’s country in an attempt to restore the Ming dynasty, reaches the castle of Kanki, a Chinese general married to Watonai’s half-sister, who had been left behind when her father was obliged to flee to Japan.
Arrived at the Lion Castle, Watonai allows his Japanese mother to enter as a hostage, and his Chinese sister, Kinsho, whom he has never seen, declares she will try to win her husband to Watonai’s cause. If he is favourable, she will pour white face powder into the stream beneath her window, and should the answer be in the negative, a quantity of rouge will dye the water. But the general does not favour his unknown brother-in-law from Japan, and Kinsho stabs herself in the breast, her blood dyeing the rivulet that flows into the Hoang-ho.
Watonai, standing on a stone bridge, watches for a sign from his sister, understands the answer is unfavourable (a property man dexterously turning over a flap in the blue stage river to show the necessary red colour). Amid much stage agony Watonai’s mother and sister die, and Kanki consents to aid the hero.
When the bridge on which Watonai stands, gazing anxiously into the river searching for a sign from his sister, is slowly forced up from below the stage, the hero is seen shading his face with a wide straw hat, and holding a flaming torch,—the audience little realises the amount of preparation that has been necessary for this impressive entrance.
Nor can the trouble the actor takes to make up according to the Ichikawa traditions be fully realised, unless a close inspection of this remarkable personage is made behind the stage.
The actor who takes the rôle of Watonai must transform his everyday countenance into a theatrical mask, that might be an apparition from the planet Saturn. The face is first painted dead white, and on this ground he draws red lines with a writing brush. Beginning with the bridge of his nose, two lines curve out over his forehead suggesting a lobster’s claws, the sweeping lines on cheeks and about the mouth forming spaces of white that are shaped like peony petals. Touches of black about the eyes and mouth are made to make them large and aggressive. Then the terrifying wig is put in place—large, bristling, the hair standing on end, signifying the daring courage of a character half Chinese and half Japanese with intent to conquer China.
After seeing Chikamatsu’s Watonai, it is realised that Japanese actors take even more pains to be unreal than Occidental actors endeavour to be lifelike.
Matsumoto Koshiro, the seventh, as Watonai, the grotesque hero of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s drama, Kokusenya Kassen, or the Battle of Kokusenya. The inner garment is bright red studded with brass, the lower purple with a design of twisted white rope.
Kinkaku-ji, or the Golden Pavilion, built by the Shogun Yoshimitsu in the fourteenth century, still stands for the public admiration in Kyoto, an historical sight in the old capital. This forms the setting for a popular scene in a fantastic doll-theatre play that is one of the best examples of jidaimono.
In this long complicated drama by Nakamura Ake and Asada Icho, the chief character is the villain, Matsunaga Daizen, who has usurped the Shogun’s power, and taken up his residence at the Golden Pavilion, where he leads a dissolute life. A beautiful young woman, Yuki-hime, daughter of a famous painter, is confined in Kinkaku-ji, this mansion of romance being reproduced in a realistic manner by the scenic craftsmen of Kabuki.
Tokichi, a loyal retainer of the Shogun, enters upon the scene, and his battle of wits with Daizen over a game of go, the Japanese chess, is a familiar and favourite scene with playgoers. Outplayed by Tokichi, Daizen in his anger overturns the go table and throws a lacquered counter-box into a well in the garden, ordering Tokichi to pick it out without wetting his hand.
Not to be outdone, Tokichi immediately overcomes the difficulty by placing a hollow bamboo pole to the waterfall that forms part of the painted scenery of the background, and the water in the well rising he lifts out the counter-box with his fan, and places it on the upturned table which he holds outstretched in one hand, his postures signifying triumph over the tyrant.
Yuki-hime, left alone with Daizen, is commanded to paint a picture of a dragon, which she declares she cannot do without having seen one. Very conveniently a silver dragon jumps up the painted waterfall aided by the indefatigable property men, and Daizen holds out his flashing sword that she may catch the reflection of the dragon.
But she sees much more, for the blade is that once owned by her father, and she knows that Daizen is her father’s enemy. Without more ado Yuki-hime’s arms are bound about with rope and she is tied to a cherry tree. She struggles to free herself, but as this is all in vain, she calls magic to her aid. Rats rush to the rescue and gnaw the rope, setting Yuki-hime free from Daizen’s clutches.
Tokichi once more enters, searching for the Shogun’s mother, who has remained immured in the Golden Pavilion and invisible. He climbs a tree to reach the upper story, and, rolling up a curtain, the hostage is seen sitting calmly within. It is an unusual and picturesque scene worthy of the jidaimono tenets.
After entering into the doings of all these queer stage-folk, it is a pleasure to find that Daizen, like most theatrical villains, is finally defeated by Tokichi’s superior strategy.