Mizuno and Chobei happen to meet in the theatre, the Murayama-za, one of Yedo’s first shibai. The play is progressing on the old-fashioned stage, when a drunkard bursts in through the audience and causes a disturbance. Chobei springs out of a box in the pit to help straighten things out. At this juncture Mizuno appears in an upper box reserved for the gentry to the left of the stage, and they exchange words. From this time onward Chobei is a marked man.
Banzuiin Chobei, a man of the people, rôle by Matsumoto Koshiro.
Mizuno’s messenger comes to Chobei’s dwelling, and delivers an invitation to dinner. Chobei’s wife does not wish him to accept, but he cannot refuse, as he would be taken for a coward. He says farewell to his wife and little son, gives his men last instructions, and sets forth.
Within Mizuno’s residence, Chobei is received with every sign of hospitality. He is unafraid, and behaves with the courtesy of manner that belongs to a man accustomed to stand up for what is just and right. An attendant purposely spills sake over his clothing, and then recommends that he take a bath. The maid leads him to the bath-room. The steam is issuing forth from the big tub. He is just about to enter when he is attacked. Chobei, with only his fists to defend himself, lays about him, and five men are stretched on the floor, the stage bath-room being considerably larger than that in real life.
The host then attacks, and even he is no match for the alert Chobei. Left alone he might have fought off his enemies, but one of the men strikes him from behind, and so he dies,—a victim to the treachery of that day.
Mizuno was afterwards ordered by the Government to commit harakiri to atone for this and other crimes. So says history, but Chobei’s memory is kept fresh by generations of actors.
Still another play of the people is that of Sakura Sogoro. He was the headman of a village not far from Tokyo. The people were oppressed by the feudal lord, and groaned under the taxes imposed until famine and destitution stared them in the face.
Sogoro decides to go to Yedo to present a petition to the Shogun, knowing that his life will be forfeit for this act of insubordination. When he returns, his wife and four sons are executed at the command of the daimyo.
He bids good-bye to his wife on a snowy evening, and tries to induce her to accept a divorce, and so escape the punishment that is bound to overtake the family. But this she refuses to do, preferring to share his fate. Sogoro trudging through the snow-drifts, with his eldest son clinging to him, and his wife and little ones looking forth from the open shoji, is a typical Kabuki farewell scene.