Kabuki

by Zoë Kincaid

Details of the Kaomise differed in the three towns, and varied according to the taste of the actors, who improvised to suit their own fancy. In Osaka, according to the Kokon Yakusha Taizen, the Kaomise was given seven times in succession, beginning in the evening and terminating in the small hours of the next day. Lanterns festooned the Dotombori, Osaka’s chief theatre street, bearing the crests of the leading actors. Gifts to the actors consisting of tubs of sake, bales of rice, dried fish, etc., were piled up so high as to reach the drum-tower. Playgoers came in boats by way of the Dotombori canal, the town being transected, then as now, by innumerable waterways. The author declares that the Osaka Kaomise was superior in attractions to similar ceremonies in Yedo or Kyoto, and that the scene was so fine that words could not be found to give it adequate description.

The dignity of the theatre was again shown in the Kojo, another announcement ceremony, when a promotion in rank, succession to a new stage name, or accession to the headship of an illustrious actor-family was made known to the audience. At such times the actors prostrated themselves on the stage, their heads touching their outspread hands. Then the chief actor would raise his face and speak on behalf of the actor whose change in rank or name was thus announced. He would in his turn, with the utmost modesty and humility, ask the audience to be lenient with his many mistakes, but that he hoped to improve and to please them in the future.

Among the many actor customs there was the Ashigoroye, or Arranging-the-Feet-in-Good-Order. Previous to the opening day of a new performance, the young actors would assemble outside the theatre and then proceed to the residence of the head of the company, their chief, who would receive them in state, sitting in a place of ceremony. The guests were clad in their best garments, and each one would receive a cup of sake from the host and return it to him. After partaking of a feast, all were requested to contribute to the evening’s entertainment by a song or dance. This custom gradually disappeared.

In connection with the November Kaomise there was a social gathering of the theatre people called the Yosehajime, or Getting-Together-for-the-First-Time. The men employed in the business management of the theatre attired in their best, carrying large lanterns in their hands adorned with the crest of the theatre, proceeded to the homes of the actors, where they were received and a fine repast spread before them.

Then the chief actors repaired to the residence of the theatre manager where they were warmly welcomed, while the onnagata gathered at the home of the leading onnagata, as might have been expected of such lady-like players.

At length actors, playwrights, managers, and musicians, all those engaged for the year to fill their respective niches in the theatre world, assembled outside the shibai just beneath the drum-tower, a goodly company of theatre-folk on the best of terms with one another. Under the leadership of the manager, they entered the theatre where a banquet was held in a room behind the stage.

To mark the opening of the theatre season when actors, playwrights, and musicians were engaged, there was a gathering called Seeing-For-The-First-Time. (Colour print by Torii Kiyonaga.)

There is a colour print by Torii Kiyonaga, painted and printed in 1784, depicting this custom so faithfully that it brings the scene vividly before our eyes. It shows the low two-storied houses on each side of theatre street in Yedo, with a glimpse of the drum-tower of the Nakamura-za to the right. On the big lanterns elevated on poles on each side of the theatre entrances, are seen the crests that recall the dream of Saruwaka Kansaburo, the founder of Yedo Kabuki, while waiting for a licence to open his theatre. He dreamed that a stork with a branch of an icho tree in its beak flew from the summit of Mount Fuji and entered his house. He took this as a good omen for his new enterprise, and the theatre crests were chosen in accordance with his dream. In Kiyonaga’s print a flying stork is seen on one lantern, a fan-shaped icho leaf on the other, while these two emblems of the Nakamura-za are represented on the paper spheres adorning the tea-houses and actors’ residences that line each side of the narrow thoroughfare.

In this picture the representatives of the theatre world are clad in the silk shirts and the stiff upper garments, or kamishimo, worn over the shoulders and tucked into their belts, that distinguished the gentleman of that day. If the yakusha were spoken of as riverside beggars, they still clung to the conventional garb of the middle and upper classes at that time worn in Japan. They also carried a sword in their belts, which was the privilege of the samurai. But this concession had been allowed since the Shogun had issued an order that the actors should be taught morality, and as a step towards their “uplift” it was commanded that they should be neatly dressed and wear a sword on leaving the theatre. When the play was over, the chief actor was escorted home by two young actors, a servant bearing a chest of clothing. The onnagata was accompanied to his house by attendants, one holding a big protecting umbrella over the head of the creator of feminine rôles.