Kansaburo, like most of the theatre men of his time, came from Kyoto to Yedo. He was of good stock, one account stating that he had sprung from the lord of the castle at Numadzu in Suruga Province, called Nakamura. However, a more reliable record appears to be that handed down by his posterity, that the family was descended from a daimyo called Nakamura, a follower of Hideyoshi, and that a member of this family, Nakamura Jiyemon, came to Yedo, became a ronin, and married his daughter to Saruwaka Kansaburo, who took the name of his father-in-law. The name “Saruwaka” was given to the comic actors who acted with O-Kuni, and as Kansaburo excelled as a comedian, he took this as his stage name.
Kyoto was the home of refinement and culture, but the political centre had shifted to Yedo, and was swarming with ronin, or independent samurai who were not attached to any particular feudal lord. They all drifted to Yedo to seek their fortunes, and Kansaburo saw a chance of utilising these wandering spirits. The reasons which led to his establishment of a theatre are given in a book he wrote called Temaye Miso, which being interpreted means: “My own bean soup”—in other words, “talking shop” about his profession. In this he says that as the ronin from different parts of Japan assembled in Yedo after the fall of Osaka Castle, when Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi, perished in the flames, and Iyeyasu became the ruler of feudal Japan, there were many soldiers of fortune who had been deprived of their living and were so reduced that they were obliged to beg for food from door to door, reciting utai, or choruses of the Nō, to the accompaniment of the tsuzumi, or small drum of the Nō stage. He planned to employ these strollers by starting a theatre and giving them an opportunity to make use of their Nō training.
In consequence the Saruwaka-za was established in 1624 at Nakabashi, near Kyobashi, in Yedo, and while Kansaburo waited for his application to erect a theatre to be granted, he dreamed that a white crane with a branch of icho, the tree with fan-shaped leaves, in its mouth, entered his house from the summit of Mount Fuji. This was a lucky dream indeed; and proceeding forthwith to a diviner for explanation, he was told it was a good omen, and that his request would be granted. Accordingly, after the theatre was constructed, he had placed on the curtain hung around the drum tower over the entrance a design of a crane, which came to be associated with Yedo theatres for many years afterwards. Also, on the curtains hung at the entrance and within the theatre, he used the design of an icho leaf.
An incident in Kansaburo’s career shows the importance in which he was held, and proves the position of the actor, who had not yet come to be regarded as a despised class as in after years.
In 1633, when the Shogun’s pleasure boat Atakamaru entered Yedo Bay from Shimoda in Izu Province, Kansaburo was summoned and ordered to stand at the bow of the vessel and to sing a sailor’s song. By way of reward he was presented with a sum of money, a coat used in battle, and other military gifts. While it was common at the time to refer to actors as “riverside beggars”, the treatment accorded Kansaburo was a special honour to his profession, and was remembered long after when the playfolks were regarded as social pariah.
In the following year Kansaburo and six actors of his theatre were invited to the palace of the Shogun, where they performed Kansaburo’s own play, called Saruwaka, and several other pieces, and were given fine clothing and money. These articles have been preserved and handed down from one head of the family to another, and were on exhibition at the Imperial Theatre during January 1919, when Nakamura Akashi, the fifteenth, performed Saruwaka, the hereditary piece of his family, in memory of the founding of the Yedo Kabuki by his ancestor Kansaburo.
This play Saruwaka concerns the adventures of a retainer who goes on a journey to Ise without his master’s permission, and returning, to avoid punishment, assumes a disguise, and so cleverly entertains him with stories of his travels that the daimyo forgets to take him to task. It smacks of the Nō Kyogen, and reveals the inspiration the early Kabuki received from the Nō theatre.
THEATRE TREASURES EXHIBITED. At the Nakamura-za, founded by Saruwaka Kanzaburo, the gifts given to him by the Shogun were considered as treasures of the theatre and exhibited on certain anniversaries with much respect, the actor holding the gold sai, or battle signal, and covering his mouth with a piece of paper lest he should breathe upon it. (Colour print by Hasegawa Kanpei, the fourteenth, and Torii Kiyosada, father of Kiyotada.)
Kansaburo was to attain to even higher honour in his old age. In 1657 there took place what is referred to as the Great Fire of Meireki, when the business portion of Yedo was burned down, including the four chief theatres and many minor ones. As there was little hope that they would be rebuilt quickly, Kansaburo decided to visit his old home in Kyoto, and journeyed thither with his second son, Shimbochi. While there he was invited through a Court noble to perform his piece Saruwaka before the Imperial Court.