Behind them plain gold screens are arranged, they kneel on a long scarlet rug, and are dressed in the stiff skirts and shoulder-straps that formed the actor’s attire of ceremony in the old days. A little apart is the announcer, generally an elderly man who has been long in the service of the actors, a sort of chief of staff of personal attendants. He calls out in a peculiar voice, asking every one in the audience to pay attention. Then the chief actor raises his head, and addressing the audience with the utmost courtesy draws attention to the young man who has changed his name and is at the threshold of his career, expressing the hope that the audience will pardon his mistakes, and take an interest in his future progress. The father of the actor whose rank is thus raised may also speak a few words in his son’s behalf, and the chief object of interest then raises his face modestly, and asks the patronage of the audience.
ANNOUNCING CEREMONY. Kojo, or announcement ceremony, in which the central figure is Ichikawa Danjuro. The modest actor whose name is to be changed or rank raised bows low, hiding his face from view. (Colour print by Hasegawa Kanpei, the fourteenth, and Torii Kiyosada, father of Kiyotada.)
At other times, the kojo is for an actor well on in years, who declares that he has given his stage name to a son or pupil, and that owing to his age and infirmities he is not able to take an active part, and desires to enter upon a period of semi-retirement.
Something of the close relation between father and son in Kabuki was shown in a kojo given at the Imperial Theatre in connection with the succession to a new name by the son of Onoe Baiko, the chief actor of this theatre. Baiko’s son, who is being carefully trained in the art of the onnagata, became Eizaburo, the seventh, denoting a certain state of progress in the attainment of the Onoe stage standards. The kojo on this occasion was performed with more than customary dignity, seven stars of the Onoe family, including Onoe Kikugoro, the sixth, attending, and each saying a few words of congratulation, strewing flowers, as it were, in the pathway of the young actor.
Similar to the solicitude of a mother in her care and consideration given the début of a daughter into society was that of Baiko for the son who is to follow in his footsteps and inherit the traditions of his art.
As is the custom upon the occasion of a change of name and consequent advancement in rank, a play was given in which Eizaburo took an important rôle, and although he was very young and immature, still in his teens, he had the responsibility of acting in a character, given to perfection by his father, that of Yuki-hime, or the Snow-Princess, the beautiful young heroine who is made a prisoner in Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion of Kyoto. She is at last bound with ropes and tied to a cherry tree.
Then the doll-stage, from which the play was taken, asserted itself. Eizaburo became a marionette, and was moved by two doll-handlers, who were none other than his father and another member of the Onoe family. Yuki-hime, true to the doll-actors, went through a complicated pantomime to the accompaniment of minstrel and samisen player, descriptive postures that revealed her determination to escape. Drawing the outline of a rat in the fallen petals about her feet by means of her big toe, the real rodents appear by magic, or rather on the ends of pliant black rods held by two property men on each side of her; using their teeth upon the rope, Yuki-hime is soon free.
Onoe Matsusuke, the veteran member of this family, was the announcer, following the custom of the Doll-theatre; the young actor, Morita Kanya, the thirteenth, became rhythm marker, stamping his feet to emphasise the changing beats, while Onoe Baiko and Onoe Kozo were the doll-handlers, who stood behind the erstwhile marionette and moved it according to the requirements of the play.
Dressed in the black costumes of the doll-stage the handlers came to the front of the stage before the piece began, lifted the face flaps of their black hoods and introduced themselves to the audience in their new disguise, then assumed again the black obscurity, and the strange but highly fascinating movements of Yuki-hime began.