Practically the same scene is represented in another colour print by Masanobu of the Nakamura-za interior four years later, in 1744. A near view of the stage is obtained, but it shows no change. Actors of the Ichikawa and Otani families hold the centre of the stage. In the background is the bell which shows the piece to be Dojo-ji, the music-drama Kabuki appropriated from the Nō relating to a female demon that comes to wreak vengeance on the new bell of the temple, Dojo-ji, which has just been hung. Segawa Kikunojo, the onnagata, stands on the hanamichi representing the fascinating maiden who is the evil creature in disguise.
Interior of the Nakamura-za in 1798 when Ichikawa Danjuro, the sixth, was promoted to the head of the theatre. By this time the roof of the stage had become a decoration overhead. (Colour print by Utagawa Toyokuni.)
Still another colour print by Nishimura Shigenaga, of the Nakamura-za in 1749, shows a sudden transformation of the stage. The two front pillars and the heavy roof that had come to be an encumbrance have disappeared. In this picture the piece represented is Takeda Izumo’s Chushingura, enacted with so much success by the marionettes that the real actors sought to emulate them. Sawamura Sojuro, popular as Yuranosuke, the leader of the loyal Forty-seven Ronin, and Ichikawa Ebizo are the central figures. The musicians have been relegated to a position in the wings; there are screens for background, and a curtain to the left bears the icho-leaf emblem adopted by Nakamura Kansaburo, the founder of Yedo Kabuki, after his lucky dream.
Practically the same theatre interior is reproduced in a print of the Ichimura-za made in 1752, with the exception that the curtains on either side of the stage show the crest of this theatre, a conventional orange with its leaves.
In a colour print by Utagawa Toyohara in 1771, the stage of the Nakamura-za has lost all connection with its square origin. In this picture there are seen the two hanamichi, large and small, that are still a feature of the modern shibai. Another picture by the same artist done in the following year shows a Kaomise, or Face-Showing ceremony, at the Nakamura-za, and perspective is used to suggest the spaciousness of the interior. This is evidence of the complete transformation from a square to a long stage parallel to the audience. The picture is one of the series depicting eight famous places of Yedo.
The Kaomise, or Face-Showing ceremony, with Danjuro, the sixth, as leading actor at the Nakamura-za in 1798, also forms the subject of a print by Toyokuni, which shows that the externals had by this time become permanent.
This transformation of the stage within a short period, approaching in its essentials the Western theatre, would lead to the supposition that outside influence was at work. But the cause lay nearer at home. It was the stage of the Doll-theatre that eventually prevailed. This was long, low, and deep, to afford ample room for the complicated movements of the marionettes, the combined efforts of groups of doll-handlers, and for the comings and goings of the property-men and scene-shifters.
In order to cope with the plays introduced from the realm of puppetry, the externals of the doll-stage were adopted, and the only link with the origin of shibai on the banks of the Kamo River in Kyoto was the roof-symbol placed in a position of honour as decoration above the new stage.
The two most striking features of the interior of the theatre brought into use with the changed form of the stage were the hanamichi and the revolving stage.