Thus Kawakami did much to delay a true recognition of Kabuki and the fine actors of Japan. He was nothing more than an adventurer in the realm of the theatre; his performances were in no sense characteristic; in fact, he was an outsider and an amateur who ignored all that had gone before, building a structure on the sands that collapsed after his death. His countrymen who saw his hybrid plays in England and France and America hung their heads, ashamed at the bold effrontery of the man thus strutting upon the Western stage as a representative actor of Japan. The poor impression he gave of Japan’s theatre art has not been erased, since no leading Kabuki actor has yet been seen in the West to show what is sincere and true on the Japanese stage.
One of Kawakami’s announcements was as follows: “Our national drama is very vulgar, and only fitted to please ignorant and common people, and is not for great men or sages. Some people wish to improve it, but this is of no use. Therefore, I am going to do away with the old style and have a shibai with men and women players, and abolish Joruri. The chief idea of our improvement lies in the spirit of the actors. We do not lay stress on the outward appearances of the actors.”
When Kawakami returned from Europe he produced Hamlet, but the stage entrance of the Dane was made on a bicycle. Othello and other Western masterpieces were similarly misrepresented.
The Sino-Japanese War was a good opportunity for Kawakami, and he made the best of it. He gave the people plays dealing with current events, filling the stage with soldiers. Long-winded speeches, sensation, lack of concentration were the features of the hastily written pieces of Shimpa. Yet Kawakami and his company soon became popular, and his theatres were packed. Ii Yoho and Kawai Takeo, two members of the company, were soon favourites, Ii had first studied medicine, and later entered a bank, before he joined Kawakami. Kawai missed his calling when he did not become a Kabuki onnagata, for he is the one genius Shimpa has produced,—a clever impersonator of women. Takada, Fujisawa, and Kawamura were also stars of the company.
The themes of the Shimpa plays were politics, the law courts, war, love, and murder,—just the strong theatrical fare the people wanted. When such material was not at hand, serial stories in the newspapers were dramatised, or European novels or plays were adapted.
Kawakami was more of an opportunist than a creator, and his school reached a certain standard and then stood still. The taste of the people demanded something better than his poorly constructed, blood-and-thunder pieces. The Shimpa could not reach the level the public demanded, and interest in it began steadily to decline. Ii and Kawai for a number of years carried on after Kawakami’s death, but at present they have separated, and the Shimpa school is practically non-existent.
When Shimpa was at its height, Kawakami’s company was largely composed of men, but Sada Yakko, who had a prominent rôle in most of the plays, was a brilliant exception. There is no doubt her beauty and attractiveness had much to do with Kawakami’s success. Training in dancing and other female accomplishments she had secured as a geisha, but preparation for stage work she had none, and was just pushed before the footlights at a moment’s notice to do the best she could. She appeared in a transient period, and the proper circumstances for the development of her grace and talent were lacking. She is but another example of the ruthlessness of Japan towards women of talent, there being scant recognition of their right to express themselves.
Ritsu-Ko Mori: The leading actress of the Tokyo Stage.
With a true understanding of her own handicap in the matter of stage education, she founded a school for actresses, and this was taken over by the Imperial Theatre, when it established a department to train young women. In 1919, seven years after the death of her husband, having failed to secure financial support to carry on the theatre Kawakami had founded in Osaka, she retired from active stage life, playing a farewell in a piece founded on the opera Aida as translated by Matsui Shoyo. On the occasion of a banquet given to celebrate the ten years’ activity of the Imperial Theatre actresses, Sada Yakko sat beside the star of this woman’s company, Ritsu-ko Mori, and it was felt that this second O-Kuni, three hundred years after the founding of Kabuki and the monopoly of the theatre by males, had once more given the impetus for a woman’s stage.