Such was the rise of the theatres in the three towns, a rapid development that came about in the half-century between the abolition of the Women’s Stage and the beginning of Genroku, Japan’s golden age.
Enthusiastic audiences filled the large theatres of Yedo, Kyoto, and Osaka, flocked to the doll-theatres where the marionettes triumphed and threatened to outrival the actors in popularity, while innumerable minor playhouses of a temporary character were set up in the compounds of shrines or by the cross-roads, and spread in the provinces.
It was a time of actor-worship. Two great stars appeared. They were Ichikawa Danjuro, of Yedo, and Sakata Tojuro, of Kyoto, diverse in their principles, leaders of the two schools that laid the foundations of modern Kabuki.
From this time onward the yakusha, or actor, dominated the theatre.
YAKUSHA
CHAPTER XI
DANJURO AND TOJURO
The first two Kabuki actors endowed with creativeness of a high order were Sakata Tojuro, of Kyoto, and Ichikawa Danjuro, of Yedo, exponents of contrasting theatre principles—the real and unreal.
They were epoch-making actors, and the manner in which they moulded the plastic theatre material of their generation is visible at the present day in the two schools they founded, that still flourish side by side in Kabuki.
Sakata Tojuro reflected the taste and elegance of his Kyoto environment. He was romantic and natural in his acting. He left no successor, but there have always been actors faithful to his styles The present Nakamura Ganjiro, of Osaka, in taking Tojuro for model and in inheriting his mantle, has appeared to be the very incarnation of this old actor.
Ichikawa Danjuro, of Yedo, established the school of aragoto, or rough acting—made out of the cloth of exaggeration, the grotesque, picturesque, unnatural, unreal. He was followed by eight members of his family, who carried on his traditions. Many of the Ichikawa actors were men of genius, who not only handed on their theatre inheritance but added new features. No other actor line has had such a powerful influence upon Kabuki as the nine members of this family.