Scene from Yotsuya Kaidan, or The Ghost of Yotsuya, by Namboku Tsuruya. Onoe Baiko is seen as the disfigured O-Iwa, and Onoe Matsusuke the kind old masseur who holds up the mirror that she may learn the truth.
Iyemon, oil-paper umbrella maker, one-time samurai, then ronin in hard luck, has a pretty young wife, O-Iwa, who has just borne him a child. His indifference to her is remarkable. The daughter of a well-to-do neighbour is in love with Iyemon, and her family conspire to put the wife out of the way by sending her a gift of medicine which is a powerful poison that will disfigure her face. The poor creature, weak and ill, unsuspecting the dark design, thankfully drinks the fatal cup. An old masseur takes pity on the unfortunate O-Iwa, and is thoroughly solicitous, a character that saves the play from becoming too sordid.
O-Iwa changed by the poison presents a hideous aspect, and the actor taking this rôle plays directly upon his audience.
The following scene shows Iyemon feasting at the neighbour’s house, where he is asked to put away his wife and marry their daughter. He consents, but his hesitation is the one redeeming quality to his credit. Then he returns home with set purpose to treat O-Iwa so shamefully that she will leave the abode of her own accord.
He refuses to give her money, even takes her clothing and the mosquito net, which he pretends to pawn. O-Iwa, shocked by her altered looks, overcome by her husband’s inhumanity, no longer desires to live, and kills herself with a sword.
Iyemon returns home once more to find her dead body, and at the same time discovers Kohei, the servant, whom Iyemon had gagged and imprisoned in the cupboard in a previous scene. Kohei is a witness to O-Iwa’s misery, and so Iyemon puts him out of the way. The two corpses are no sooner bundled out of sight by Iyemon’s ruffians than the bride arrives in state and there is a scramble to prepare for her. When Iyemon approaches his new wife she is still in her wedding robe. He takes off the white veil that covers her head and discovers the frightful visage of O-Iwa. Making a plunge with his sword he cuts off the head of his bride. In haste he runs to tell her father, when he encounters the ghost of Kohei, and using his weapon again he severs the head of his father-in-law.
The scene which follows, however, quite outdoes anything in the supernatural in which Kabuki is wont to specialise. Iyemon fishing in the river discovers the door to which the bodies of the two victims were tied when they were thrown into the water. O-Iwa raises her head and speaks in sepulchral tones, and the door turning over, Kohei’s ghost repeats its tragic phrase: “Master, medicine, please!” For these were the words Kohei used when interceding on O-Iwa’s behalf. The same actor takes the rôles of both ghosts, and the lightning change from wife to servant is left to the imagination of the spectators, and only the stage mechanics beneath the blue and white cotton waves know how the transformation is effected.
Without doubt Botan Doro, The Peony Lantern, takes first place among the ghost plays of Kabuki. A Chinese tale retold by the professional story-teller, Encho, and dramatised by Mokuami and Fukuchi, the two outstanding playwrights of the Meiji era, it is always performed in midsummer. Ghosts are a cooling influence for theatre-goers surfeited with the sights and sounds of the hot thoroughfares, and shades from another world clad in grey, with wan, indistinct faces, seen vaguely behind weeping willow branches, seem appropriate stage characters in summer weather.
The chief characters in Botan Doro are O-Tsuyu, a beautiful maiden in love with Hagiwara Shinsaburo. There is also the young lady’s maid, and a picturesque evildoer, Tomozo.