By 1630 Western books were interdicted, and in 1635 all travelling abroad was prohibited under penalty of death. Ninety years after the first arrival of the Portuguese ships, foreign intercourse was forbidden, except with the Dutch and Chinese under severe restrictions. So rigorous were the measures taken against Christianity that by 1638 it had been practically extirpated.
This did not prevent the people from evincing great curiosity with regard to the unknown lands beyond the seas, and references to the forbidden subject were frequent in the plays, particularly those written for the marionettes. In these old pieces the playwrights equipped their characters with the firearms introduced by the Portuguese, who had given instruction how to make guns and cast cannon.
In one of these plays a telescope is seen, which two comedians use with such telling effect that they can see the approach of the heroine from afar. Other characters take out spectacles the better to see to read by the light of the oil wick in the andon, or portable paper lantern carried about to illuminate a room.
This early period of intercourse with other lands produced an unmistakable effect upon stage costumes. Many of them have been carefully preserved, and may be seen to-day. They are generally fastened in the front by many buttons, and are made of materials never in common use in Japan.
In a play written long ago a line occurs with the words: “Love is a magnet”. And in one of the eighteen hereditary pieces of the Ichikawa family the theme of magnetism is dramatised.
Records are left to tell how various actors travelled to Nagasaki. This was not a theatre centre, and it may be surmised that the quest was made to obtain information from the Dutch, who were allowed to live at Deshima, a small island outside Nagasaki harbour. Here they were confined and allowed to trade, but were refused permission to put foot on the mainland. A gay dance known in shibai by the un-Japanese name of Kappore, is thought to have had a Western origin. Some actor or musician must have witnessed the sailors of a trading ship performing in a treaty port.
The treatment of the Chinese during the Tokugawa regime was much better than that meted out to the Dutch. The Ming dynasty in China was overthrown in 1644, and this brought many refugees to Japan. The Chinese were free to move about the country, to have their own quarters, and to build temples. Among them were traders, scholars, artists, and doctors. It is not unlikely that actors, or those familiar with the Chinese theatre, were also among the representatives of China in Japan at that time. Fenollosa mentions that complex Chinese movements of every variety were surging about Kyoto in Horeki (1751–1763), and that Japanese scholars obtaining painted scrolls and books in Nagasaki returned to Kyoto or Yedo laden down with them. Some indirect influence may have been brought to bear upon Kabuki and Ningyo-shibai from these sources.
Aragoto, or the rough acting of Ichikawa Danjuro, the first, was closely akin to the principles uppermost on the Chinese stage. His strange make-up, broad lines of black or red, or combinations of black, blue, and red, are acknowledged to have come from China, and other methods of making-up used on the doll-stage, later copied by the yakusha, are undoubtedly of Chinese origin, as may easily be seen by comparison with the present-day conventions on the Peking stage.
It was in the matter of stage costumes that Chinese influence was greatest. Weavers had been brought over from China in Hideyoshi’s time and were gradually assimilated with native workers. The making of textiles reached the height of development in the Genroku age. This importation of materials, rich in design and colour, had a remarkable effect upon the costumes of the Nō stage, and to a considerable extent also upon Kabuki and Ningyo-shibai. Rare stuffs, woollen and velvet from Holland, were worn on the stage; gold brocades and embroideries from China. Wigs were also greatly improved at this time, and beards, probably from the Chinese theatre, began to be used.
In the Kabuki chronicles it is stated that a painting of Ichikawa Danjuro, the second, was taken to China by traders plying between Nagasaki and the Chinese ports, and it seems likely that the yakusha became familiar with some of the favourite Chinese actors.