Left all alone, the faithful Benkei takes up once more the yamabushi box, slips it on his back, and starts by way of the hanamichi. The curtain is drawn, the attendant holding back one end as Benkei pauses before making his wonderful exit. He takes three jumps on one foot and then leaps forward, whirling his staff in air, and repeating this, clears the hanamichi in three great bounds, giving expression to his triumphant mood and the strength of his loyalty to his master, amid the thunder of big drums, the shrilling of the flute, and the steady metallic clapping of the hyoshigi, that announce the end of the piece.
V
For the same reason that the music of shibai, depending as it does on unfamiliar groupings of sound and intricate and ever-changing rhythms, does not appeal immediately to Occidental ears, so the aragoto plays of Kabuki are equally incomprehensible. They are largely the improvisations of actors, have little plot, and sometimes are quite meaningless. Unliterary they are to a degree. But their whole value lies in the remarkable stage treatment they display, how it is done apparently being of much greater importance than what it is about. These strange plays do not appeal to the intellect, nor are they planned to stir the emotions. They are not intended to be anything in particular, simply the unconscious theatre instinct at work creating a feast of colour and movement to spread before the eyes.
The eighteen pieces of the Danjuro family are for the most part aragoto, in which acting and posture are the chief features. Sukeroku is among the best of these quaint Ichikawa pieces. The scene is the outside of a house in the gay quarters, the entire front vermilion-coloured and barred, the usual show place for the inmates according to the old custom. Several gorgeous processions pass over the hanamichi to the stage, and then comes the villain, a venerable white-haired old gentleman, in bronze brocade, the very person the hero, Sukeroku, seeks.
Sukeroku makes an unusual entrance, running in through the audience, his head bowed low and covered from sight by a half-shut oiled-paper umbrella. He makes a striking theatrical figure, for he wears a black kimono lined with pale blue and edged with scarlet, while his belt, or obi, is of green brocade bearing for design in gold the familiar three-rice-measure crest of the first Danjuro. A red neckcloth sets off the white mask-like face with the broad red outlines about the eyes, true to the make-up traditions of the Ichikawa house. A purple band is tied around his head and falls in folds at one side.
In his postures on the hanamichi with his black and white umbrella, Sukeroku every second assumes a new pose, that causes him to appear like a piece of statuary in a bewildering number of aspects, as he shadows forth the meaning of the character he represents,—the bravery and fighting spirit of an otokodate, or man of the people, always ready to defend the weak. He also suggests that Sukeroku is in reality Goro, one of the Soga brothers, and that he is disguised as Sukeroku, and is searching for a lost sword.
Morita Kanya, the thirteenth, son of the aggressive theatre manager of Meiji, as Yoshitsune, the young hero of the music-drama Kanjincho.
Thus the actors who created the character in the time of the fifth Danjuro knew what they were about, for the Soga brothers, otokodate, chivalrous commoners and searchers after swords, were prime favourites with Yedo audiences, and they were combined for greater effect in the character of Sukeroku.
Seeking for a quarrel in the pleasure quarters, brave Sukeroku is no respecter of persons, for his only aim is to make men draw their swords that he may find the one of his quest.