It is only the really great, whether among actors or members of other professions, those who have reached the height of their careers, who can descend to such personal effacement as this. Perhaps it is only possible in the East, where there still lingers some instinct for the great truth that mankind has from time to time recognised—that personality is less important than art.
The fifteenth anniversary of the death of Ichikawa Danjuro, the ninth, was celebrated in a fitting manner by the Tokyo stage, and the kojo, or salutation to the audience, was given at the chief theatres, the Imperial and the Kabuki-za. Thirty players, for the most part those associated with Danjuro during his lifetime, and also his two daughters, made up two long lines of bowing actors, recalling the ceremonies of Yedo Kabuki. All were in the terra-cotta kimono bearing the famous crest formed by three squares, worn by the first Ichikawa in the Genroku period, and used by his descendants and pupils ever since.
The last of the Ichikawa family, the grand-daughter of Ichikawa Danjuro, the ninth.
In the kojo given at the Imperial, Matsumoto Koshiro, the most talented pupil of the late Danjuro, acted as master of ceremony. There was one very small figure among the actors, Danjuro’s grand-daughter, bowing before the footlights between her father, Ichikawa Shinsaburo, and her uncle, Ichikawa Sansho. The appearance of this last descendant of the chief actor-house of Kabuki caused the audience to grow enthusiastic in their applause.
An actor’s improvisation at the Kabuki-za to honour the memory of Danjuro was also given. The stage showed the front of a Yedo theatre with a tea-house at one side and a sign announcing the Danjuro anniversary. Nine of the most popular onnagata of the Kabuki-za and Ichimura-za entered as maids of the tea-house and stood waiting for the appearance of otokodate, or chivalrous commoners. These popular characters were taken by fourteen of Tokyo’s best actors, and they came in slowly by the two hanamichi and stood facing each other, talking across the audience, displaying by their voice and manner some characteristic which had endeared them to playgoers in past performances. With the onnagata they made a brave array of actor talent.
Into their midst came the veteran onnagata, Nakamura Utayemon, chief of the Tokyo actors. He made his entrance as the mistress of the tea-house, and addressed the audience on Danjuro and his work for Kabuki.
The Ichikawa crest was conspicuous in the decorations of the theatre within and without, and high over the entrance of the Kabuki-za, where the yagura, or drum tower of the Yedo theatre was accustomed to appear, there shone forth at night a huge Ichikawa crest in electric globes, somehow linking the modern actor of Japan with the fraternity in the West.
Less elaborate is the announcement of a minor actor’s promotion to a grade or so above the rank and file, made during the progress of a play, which is done in various graceful ways.
Two women in the establishment of a daimyo, rivals in the play, enter by the hanamichi with their attendants, and the procession proceeds to the gate of a temple. All enter with the exception of the rivals, and one maid.