Kabuki

by Zoë Kincaid

With a similar display of dignity, the actor made his round of calls during the New Year season, the sleeves of his kimono bearing the crest of his family, a retinue following in his wake, the cynosure of all eyes as he passed through the admiring throngs of holiday-makers.

There were interesting customs in connection with the door-keepers. They were strangely costumed in long trailing women’s kimono, of vivid hues and bearing loud designs, thrown on carelessly over their ordinary wearing apparel, ostensibly to keep themselves warm, as they sat for long hours on raised platforms just outside the entrance doors, but in reality this striking attire was assumed to attract the attention of the public. Over their heads and drawn down over their ears were towels that were dyed with the crest of the chief actor of the theatre. One of these men was busy dealing out the tickets, long oblong pieces of wood, on which were written the big black Chinese characters denoting the place in the theatre it entitled the purchaser to take. The second door-keeper was more of a persuader than a distributor of wooden tickets, for with fan in hand he gesticulated while he loudly advertised the plays and players, sometimes imitating the delivery of the actor’s lines. His task was to keep up a flow of small talk, interspersed with wit and humour, and so induce people to enter.

ADVERTISING THE PLAY. During the performances two men garbed in long trailing feminine attire, their heads covered with cotton towels, attracted the passers-by by their verbal advertisement. One imitated the lines of the actors, and the other handed out wooden tickets. (Colour print by Hasegawa Kanpei, the fourteenth, and Torii Kiyosada, father of Kiyotada.)

Previous to the opening day, the door-keepers read the names of the plays, the actors, and their parts. Dressed in their womanish kimono they presented an extraordinary sight, as, holding between them a long paper scroll on which the programme was written, they delivered their voluble announcement to the crowds anxious to hear news of what was going forward in the shibai.

With a change of programme, the actors and their rôles were advertised to the public by an actor’s crest board, narrow pieces of wood with the crest at the top. These were arranged side by side outside the shibai.

One of the most interesting customs was the kamban, or bill-board on which paintings of a high order were frequently to be seen. These posters illustrating the plays, done in bright colours, were hung on kamban that were bordered by wide lacquered frames often richly ornamented with brass, and placed along the front of the shibai.

A special school of painters was called into being to look after these pictorial advertisements, and they became the specialty of the Torii family. They were first started in Genroku by an actor-founder of this line of theatre artists. Less beautiful street posters were pasted up on fences and houses where several roads met.

With the beginning of Kabuki, the shibai advertisements consisted of boards on which Chinese characters were written. Later on, in Kyoto these simple announcements were framed and decorated with artificial flowers. To make them even more attractive an actor pasted a picture on the board. These posters were placed in the street to proclaim to the passer-by the nature of the coming performances. This custom originated with Nagoya Sansaburo, when he sought to make O-Kuni’s river-bed show widely known. He was the first person to write announcements on wood in Chinese characters and to set them up at the cross-roads.

The founder of the Torii family was an Osaka actor, who followed the onnagata specialty, but painting was his hobby, and he began to make pictures for the kamban of Dotombori. Later he removed to Yedo. His son, Kiyonobu, inherited his father’s talent, and as his style of painting greatly pleased the Yedo people, he soon became very popular and was called Torii, the first.