Under the aegis of Danjūrō I and his son Danjūrō II, the kata took form for two of the most highly esteemed and spectacular plays in the Kabuki repertoire, Shibaraku (Wait a Moment) and Sukeroku Yukari no Edo-Zakura (Sukeroku's Affinity for Edo Cherry Blossoms, or The Love Story of Sukeroku and Agemaki). The latter play, incidentally, is generally performed in the springtime. The present-day costumes for both of these plays remain almost identical with those of Genro times.
SHIBARAKU AND ITS COSTUMES
The flamboyant aragoto dramas of Danjūrō I have left an eloquent imprint on the Kabuki world, but none has attained the prominence of Shibaraku. The hero of the play, Kamakura no Gongorō Kagemasa, appears in the most enormous and fantastically styled costume and wig, which makes him anything but alluring to Western eyes insofar as color and beauty are concerned. The play, moreover, has practically no plot to impress the beholder, yet it is a tour de force, for it is difficult to discard the remembrance of a mounting so overwhelming in feeling of greatness and power.
Present-day performances of Shibaraku are brought vibrantly alive by such actors as Ichimura Uzaemon XVII, Matsumoto Kōshirō VIII, and Kōshirō's younger brother, Onoe Shōroku II. Shōroku is perhaps the most excitingly skillful aragoto actor of all by reason of his winning personality, stalwart physique, and full-throated diction, in addition to his superb kata (acting format). Some Japanese critics, however, considered the aragoto of the late Bandō Mitsugorō VII the most perfected kata among contemporary artists. (Mitsugorō died in 1961 at the age of seventy-nine, after seventy-two years of stage life. His real name was Morita Jusaku.) It is difficult to agree with this opinion, because Mitsugorō was small of stature and had a small, almost childish voice, both of which detracted from the bombastic character of the aragoto role in which he played. Perhaps the point in question is one in which the Westerner fails in his concept of Kabuki. He is still looking for some type of reality, be it imaginative or realistic. The Japanese sees the force within the less noisy spectacle.
Shibaraku's costuming and make-up were set in the tenth year of Genro (1697), which saw the initial performance of the play under the title Sankai Nagoya. The Kabuki Nendai-ki (Chronological History of Kabuki Drama) gives us our only hint of the costume worn by the energetic Danjūrō I in this first performance. The third and final revision, the fantasy we know today, was the creation of Danjūrō II, who wore it on his first appearance in Shibaraku, then known as Jumpū Taihei-ki (The Story of Peaceful Days like Good Wind on the Sea), at the Edo Kawarasaki-za in 1736.
The first costume in which Danjūrō I appeared was an atsuwata-no-hirosode (atsu, thick; wata, padded; hiro, wide opening; sode, sleeve): a thickly padded wide-sleeve garment, commonly called atsuwata, worn over yoroi (armor) under which was a juban (undergarment), probably of white silk, and one other garment (Fig. 7). Kote (arm protectors) covered the lower half of the arms, and sune-ate (leg guards) encased the legs to the ankles. The atsuwata was belted with a nawa (rope) obi made of oversized wadded cloth rope through which was thrust a single long sword that extended high above the opposite shoulder in the back. The feet were bare. The katsura (wig) was dressed in furiwake-no-sumi-maegami (furiwake, center-parted; sumi, corner; maegami, forelock) style—that is, with the hair parted in the middle and shaved at the corners of the forehead where the forelock had already been cut in the gempuku or gembuku (coming-of-age) ceremony. A chikara-gami (chikara, strength; kami, paper), a hair decoration made of fine-quality hōsho paper, was tied around the mage, the ponytail. Originally it was inconspicuous, but it gradually took on the shape of a pair of bat wings to denote power.
The pattern of the first costume for Shibaraku was one of the most novel of Kabuki origin. The reddish-brown atsuwata was designed with three distinctive motifs, including a demon's red arm, taken from the story of Watanabe no Tsuna and the demon who lived in the famed Rashōmon gate in Kyoto; a kinsatsu or prohibitory sign (from the same story); and the back view of a kabuto (helmet) with its laminar folds. The kabuto was ornamented in front with the golden "helmet horns" called kuwagata (kuwa, hoe; gata, shape or type) because its shape was taken from that of the lowly hand hoe. The blade end and sides form an outline similar to that of horns.
The second costume of Danjūrō I in Shibaraku (Fig. 8) was a blue suō, a set of clothing consisting of an uwagi (outer garment) with wide-open sleeves and naga-bakama (long trailing trousers). The right arm was removed from the sleeve, revealing the bare upper right portion of the torso and arm. Through the left side of the obi was thrust an unusually long sword that curved upward past the shoulder. A huge kamahige, a sickle-shaped mustache, rose to meet the yarō-atama (adult male hair styling) wig, and a samurai eboshi (hat) was firmly fixed to the head. Relieving the severity of the monochrome costume, a daimon (large crest) was worked into the center of each sleeve. In this instance, Danjūrō's crest, the mimasu mon (mi, three; masu, dry-measure box; mon, crest) was used. The crest is called the mimasu mon because the three concentric squares are said to be patterned after three rice-measuring boxes.
The third costume, the final refinement of the aragoto costume for Shibaraku, was evolved by Danjūrō II and is essentially the costume used even today (Fig. 9). The suō, now of enormously exaggerated proportions, is kaki or kakishibu, a reddish-brown color taken from the color of the astringent juice pressed from the skin of the Japanese persimmon. It is a color that gives an impression of colossal strength, and its sturdiness is sharply enhanced by the use of rough cotton cloth. Probably the most distinguishing characteristic of this Shibaraku suō is the out-sized sleeves with the mimasu crest set in their centers. Each sleeve stretched out makes a large square by the insertion of cloth-covered bamboo splints. Only a great actor could survive this monstrous costume, which not only completely envelops the man but also extends far beyond his arms and trails behind his covered feet.
The existing ishō-no-tsukechō (costumers' notebooks) clearly show that little change has been made throughout the years in the Shibaraku costume. In comparison, a costume worn by Ichikawa Danjūrō IX during the November 1895 performance at the Tokyo Kabuki-za and that worn forty-one years later by Matsumoto Kōshirō VII for the January 1936 Kabuki-za performance are found to be almost identical.
The form of the costume was identical, but Danjūrō wore a plain kaki (reddish brown) suō with immensely long, trailing trousers, whereas Kōshirō's suō was designed with lateral stripes of persimmon brown. Both costumes had large mimasu crests in white. As usual, the sleeves were made to look like large square shields by the insertion of cloth-covered bamboo splints.
7. First Shibaraku costume: atsuwata-no-hirosode. This thickly padded wide-sleeve garment, worn over armor, was devised by Danjūrō I.
8. Second Shibaraku costume: suō. The second costume chosen by Danjūrō I for his role in Shibaraku was a blue suō, a set of clothing consisting of an uwagi with wide open sleeves and the long trailing trousers known as naga-bakama (here drawn up for combat).
9. Third Shibaraku costume: suō. The third costume for Shibaraku was evolved by Danjūrō II and is essentially the costume still used today for the role of Kamakura Gongorō Kagemasa.
10. Sukeroku costume. The costume evolved by Danjūrō II for the role of Sukeroku was almost identical with that seen today on the Kabuki stage. The chief difference is that the earlier costume employed the stylized peony crest called gyōyō-botan mon, as shown here.
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