Crest of Bando Hikosaburo
(Stork).
Matsumoto Koshiro, of the Imperial Theatre, in the character of Townsend Harris, the first American Minister to Japan. A photograph of the intrepid Kentucky Colonel is on the actor’s dressing table.
CHAPTER XIII
YAKUSHA OF HOREKI
After Genroku, the most flourishing period for Kabuki and its yakusha was Horeki, an era covering seventy years, during which three shoguns held sway.
Historically, Horeki endured from 1751 to 1764, the name being given to the reign of an emperor. It came to be applied to the years preceding and following it, a period in which the dominating influence was that of Yoshimune, the third Shogun of the Tokugawa regime.
Owing to the extravagance of the shogunate, the country was on the verge of bankruptcy. Immorality was on the increase, and efforts were made to keep the restless people under control. Luxury in all shapes and forms was frowned upon by the authorities. The literary centre of the country was transferred from Kyoto to Yedo, and the greatest activity was to be found in the theatres.
If Yedo Kabuki had lost its lustre when the first Ichikawa Danjuro and Nakamura Hichisaburo passed away, its prestige was fully restored by the second Ichikawa Danjuro and the first Sawamura Sojuro. In the latter part of this period the fourth Danjuro was a great theatre power.
Ichikawa Danjuro, the second, was born in 1688 and died in 1758.
When a child of 10 years of age he appeared on the stage, but owing to his father’s tragic death, was left without a stage sponsor. If his father had lived, he would have been trained and advanced in all possible ways. The actors of the time evidently neglected him. He was given insignificant rôles, and was otherwise badly treated. His mother, who had retired to live in a quiet spot outside Yedo, declared that she would never go to the theatre to see him act until he was earning a salary of 1000 ryo, which meant that he must become a successful actor. The sudden taking off of his father, and the cold attitude of the theatre folk, stimulated the young actor to hard work. Accordingly, he went to the Narita temple, and there prayed that he should become a more successful actor than his father. The God of Fire that had answered his father’s prayer must have listened, it would almost seem, to his foster-child’s petition, for while the first Danjuro’s salary per year was 800 ryo, the second received 1270. After this it became customary to refer to a highly salaried actor as a “thousand-ryo yakusha”.