Crest of Nakamura Kichiyemon
(Wings of butterfly).
Crest of Nakamura Ganjiro
(Combination of four characters).
CHAPTER XV
ONNAGATA
The story of the yakusha from the beginning of the male theatre to the dawn of the Meiji era would not be complete without mention of the onnagata, or players who specialised in women’s rôles.
Although the popularity of the most attractive and gifted onnagata was very great, yet as a class they never tried to outrival the tateyaku, or chief actors. Like the women of real life whom they sought to impersonate, they rarely attempted leadership in stage matters, and were content with modest rôles among the famous actors who played upon the stages of the three towns. The onnagata held a place all their own, and one of the most interesting developments of Kabuki has been the training and cultivation to fit men to play female characters.
The accidental cause that led to the creation of the male theatre, and in consequence to the existence of the onnagata, was the prohibition of mixed players and finally the banishment of women from the theatre. Yet it was but a reversion to an older order of things theatrical, for the practice of excluding women and employing men in their stead was centuries old in Japan and China. Long before O-Kuni began her performances on the river-bed at Kyoto, no female had dared to tread the sacred boards of the Nō stage lest its sanctity be impaired.
The disappearance of women from the theatre may have been due to the status of Japanese women, for in the general scheme of things at that time in Japan her social position prevented her from asserting a claim to the recognition of her talent, and she had no right to the free development of her instincts in the sphere of the theatre. Whether the strict adherence to the onnagata convention was due to the fear that moral corruption would follow the custom of men and women playing together, or that it was desired to keep women within their own sphere and to restrain their appearance in public where they did not belong, it is certain that all female talent in the direction of the theatre was religiously suppressed.
