One of his best pieces is the music-drama, Omori Hikoshichi, a favourite play of Matsumoto Koshiro, the seventh, in which a warrior, Omori Hikoshichi, meets a seductive-looking maiden on a country road and volunteers to help her across a river. He is performing this kindly deed when she draws a short sword and attacks him. He is in possession of her father’s precious blade, and she is determined to recover it. Instead of retaliation, as she had expected, he generously presents the much-desired weapon to her and behaves in so chivalrous a manner that she goes on her way rejoicing, while he feigns to be overcome by enchantment in order to distract the attention of his companions, and mounting his black velvet stage-steed rides off triumphantly.
Fukuchi lived through an unprofitable period of the theatre, tried to conform to the demand of the time by writing “living-history” pieces for Danjuro, and the interest of the public cooling, he was pushed aside, and passed away forgotten and neglected. Many of his plays are more appreciated to-day than they were in his lifetime, especially Kasuga no Tsubone, or The Lady Kasuga.
A pioneer among the literary playwrights of Meiji, Dr. Tsubouchi wrote several elaborate dramas, showing the influence of his Shakespearean studies. The most ambitious of his works are Kirihitoha, A Leaf of the Kiri-tree, and Maki-no-Kata, The Lady Maki. The first is a play in seven acts and many scenes, and has for theme the overthrow of Osaka Castle by Iyeyasu, when Hideyori, the son of the great Hideyoshi, perished in the flames.
The climax of Oriental stage splendour is reached in the production of this long play. There is such an elaboration of detail, extravagance of gold screen, and prodigality of colour forming the stage pictures that is at once sumptuous and overpowering. The play would become nothing more than a series of tableaux vivants were it not for the characters of Yodogimi and Katagiri. Yodogimi, the mother of Hideyori, mistress of Hideyoshi, drawn from history, goes insane as Iyeyasu’s forces gain entrance through the gates of the castle and the watch-towers are seen in flames. Katagiri, a faithful old retainer of Hideyoshi, bowed with age and infirmity, gives proof of his loyalty as he watches the burning castle.
Among Dr. Tsubouchi’s music-posture pieces there is O-Natsu Kyoran, or Mad O-Natsu, a maiden all forlorn seeking her lost lover, and mistaking a stupid country bumpkin of a horse-driver as the hero of her dreams. In 1920 his Honan, or Religious Persecution, was produced. This centred about the founder of the Hokke sect of Buddhism, and shows the martyrdom of Nichiren and his followers. It created a storm of discussion by press and public, a play with a religious theme being somewhat of a novelty in Tokyo. The appointment of Dr. Tsubouchi as an adviser to the Imperial Theatre comes after a lifetime spent in literary work, translations, playwriting, and endeavours to reform the stage. It is with his lectures and translations of Shakespeare that his name is largely identified. Waseda University was founded in 1882, and since that year Shakespeare has continued the favourite study of the department of English Literature, of which for many years Dr. Tsubouchi was the head. Collegiate interest in Shakespeare, however, dates back to 1877, with the creation of the literary department of Tokyo University, now the Imperial University of Tokyo.
During the middle part of Meiji, Okamoto Kido began to write for the Tokyo stage, and is regarded as the representative modern playwright, both for the number and variety of his successes. He is a most indefatigable worker, and several of his new pieces are produced yearly. One of his favourite themes is the persecution of the early Christian converts in Japan,—and he has written a number of plays concerning these martyrs.
An Okamoto play that is often repeated, and is certainly one of his best, is The Mask-Maker, showing the high regard in which the artisans of Old Japan held their work. It expresses Kabuki’s love of the Spartan spirit, when the daughter of the mask-maker returns home in a dying condition, after attempting to protect the Shogun from attack, and her face inspires her father to execute a masterpiece.
Attached to the Kabuki-za during Meiji was the late Enomoto Torahiko. He started his career on the newspaper Yamato Shimbun, then studied under Fukuchi, and after Fukuchi’s death succeeded as head sakusha of the Kabuki-za. He was a deep student of French drama, and his plays were influenced strongly by the literature he so greatly admired. One of his most popular plays is Meiko Sakaido Kakiyemon, or Kakiyemon, the Potter. This tells how Kakiyemon devoted himself to making a rich red-glaze porcelain. A wealthy neighbour wished to gain the secret that he might profit thereby, and withheld aid from the old man until he was so reduced he could not buy wood to keep his kilns going. A good scene in this piece is that of the kilns in the moonlight, the red glow of the fires, the smoke rising into the air, while in the background is the glare of a conflagration—the city of Nagasaki on fire.
An Osaka playwright who has given Kabuki several fine plays is Takayasu Gekko. His father was known as one of the leading physicians of Osaka, and he was expected to take up the same profession, but preferred to devote himself to literature and the stage. Sakura Shigure, or The Cherry Shower, is regarded as his best play. An old man angry with his son for an affair with a belle of the gay quarter expels him from home. Shifting for himself, the son and the woman he loves begin life together in a cottage. The father happens to pass that way one day, and is caught in a shower. He seeks shelter within the humble cottage, but does not know that he is accepting the hospitality of his despised daughter-in-law. She prepares ceremonial tea for him, he is struck with her accomplishments and good manners, and when he discovers that she is the wife of his son, a reconciliation is effected.
Dr. Ogai Mori worked persistently during Meiji in the translation of German literature and drama. Osanai Kaoru translated from the French and German, and has produced a number of his own plays. Matsui Shoyu was tireless in his efforts in the translation of English drama, and is known as an adapter rather than an original playwright. The late Miigita Torahiko, attached to the Imperial Theatre, produced a number of excellent plays. Masuda Taro, a clever writer of light society pieces and farce, has composed chiefly for Miss Mori and the actresses of the Imperial. One of his successes was Noroi, or The Curse, with an imaginary Damascus of a thousand years ago as setting. After a week’s run it was noticed that the wicked princess who causes all the trouble, and who must die in the end in order that the good shall triumph over evil, according to the eternal convention of the fairy-tale, did not tumble down at the fateful dagger thrust, but remained erect, standing in a very commanding pose upon the throne with the final curtain. The police authorities who censor plays had objected to the death by such means of so exalted a personage. It was not proper in their minds to kill the princess, although she richly deserved it, and the whole point of the play was lost.