Dr. Yuzo Tsubouchi, one of the leading modern dramatists, in commenting on the prejudice against the actors, writes: “Many persons despised them and still harboured against them the prejudice which had originated in the tradition that they had been put under the control of the eta during the Kamakura shogunate. Even at the close of the Tokugawa rule they were not looked upon as respectable citizens, and consequently the military class studiously avoided intercourse with them and refrained from visiting the theatre.”
In a similar strain the late Rev. Arthur Lloyd says in his Notes on Japanese Drama in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan: “The shibai had but a poor reputation. No samurai or respectable person would have degraded himself by attendance at a performance. They were compelled to live like eta, in Ghettos or districts of their own, being shunned by all persons of position or repute. It was folly to expect anything at all noble or inspiring from persons compelled to live in such surroundings, and it speaks volumes for the despised play-actors and playwrights that they did not sink lower.”
Captain Francis Brinkley in the chapter dealing with Refinements and Pastimes in his Japan: its History, Arts and Literature, writes as follows regarding the attitude toward the actors of Meiji: “Ichikawa Danjuro and Onoe Kikugoro, the princes of the stage at present, would long ago have earned a world-wide reputation had their lot been cast in any Western country. There cannot be any second opinion about their capacities, or about their title to rank with the great tragedians of the world. But in their own country, though their names are household words, taint of their profession clings to them still. Men speak of them as a ballet dancer of extraordinary agility or a banjo player of eminent skill would be spoken of in Europe or America—renowned exponents of a renownless art.”
Undoubtedly this attitude of the upper classes had much to do with the triviality and vulgarity that existed in the theatre. But on the other hand, the isolated actors and playwrights belonged all the more to the theatre. Left without leadership, they worked out their own salvation, and made their own standards. Lacking the stimulus that the recognition and encouragement of the highest in the land might have given them, they were able through their own innate sense of art and unerring desire for beauty to bring about the present rich accumulation of artistic forces within Kabuki which may yet be an impetus to the Western theatre, hungry as it is for just such fare as Kabuki is able to provide so bountifully.
When all is considered the yakusha was more sinned against than sinning. In fact, he was often more cultivated than the ordinary citizen, even the samurai who, especially in the lower ranks, were merely rough, unlearned soldiery, and often knew nothing of courtesy or manners. “Too often”, says Fenollosa, “we have read that the whole brilliancy and value of Japan lay in her samurai.”
The yakusha excelled in military arts, they used judo and fencing with good effect on the stage, and were expert in swordsmanship. They were obliged to be skilled counterfeiters of the samurai, since the most popular plays were those dealing with the exploits of the two-sworded hero, and nothing pleased playgoers better than to see the stately daimyo and his loyal retainers represented on the stage, for they were personages so far removed from the everyday life of the plain citizen.
After all, it was the outcast yakusha who upheld the flower of chivalry and idealised the faithfulness of man for master, loyalty and self-sacrifice, the favourite themes of the plays.
Again, it was the yakusha, held in such low esteem, who was to keep alive the feudal age, long after it had passed away. And it is the yakusha to-day who maintains the dignity of bearing and represents the heroic deeds of the samurai, when many of their descendants have wellnigh forgotten the principles that actuated their ancestors.
Nakamura Kichiyemon as Kumagae, a warrior of Old Japan.