words, 'I wish I were her lover.' On the stage you must make the women of the audience think you are of the same sex as they. If you can make them copy your kimono, your obi, your katsura, or any article of apparel you wear, you will be successful."
The field of dancing was dominated by onnagata from the outset. This was probably a tradition carried forward from the time of Okuni Kabuki, when most dancing was the accepted accomplishment of women. Another reason for this predominance might have been the fact that the "women" always had to be in the background in dramas; thus, dancing afforded the early onnagata his only opportunity for a stellar role. The shosagoto or dance-drama sought mainly to please the eye of the avid public; consequently, costumes for the dancers became increasingly extravagant, diversified, and detailed (Figs. 11-13).
It was during Hōreki that shosagoto such as Kyō-Ganoko Musume Dōjōji (The Gay Scene of the Maiden in Kanoko Kimono at Dōjō Temple) and Sagi Musume (The White Heron Maiden) were first introduced. Kikunojō was the first to appear in the ethereally lovely white costume with black obi in Sagi Musume. Nakayama Tomijūrō I entered via the hanamichi in a heavily embroidered red silk kimono, wearing a gold eboshi in Dōjōji. The costumes for these dance plays are essentially the same today, but Onoe Kikugorō VI, father of the present-day onnagata Onoe Baikō VII and himself a noted onnagata, changed the order of the costumes in Dōjōji. He appeared on the hanamichi in a black costume and changed swiftly to a red kimono (Fig. 12) on the stage by the quick-change technique of hikinuki.
Kabuki often used the kata or format of the puppet theater. Some of the more famous costumes taken over from that theater are noted here. From the historical drama Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami (The Teaching of the Secrets of Sugawara's Calligraphy), the Kabuki adapted the costumes for the triplet brothers Matsuō-maru, Umeō-maru, and Sakuramaru. These were wadded costumes differentiated from each other only by the designs on the material: the pine, the bamboo, and the cherry taken from the names of the respective brothers. Also taken from a historical play was the black satin garment worn by Tadanobu in Yoshitsune Sembon-Zakura (Yoshitsune under the Blossoming Cherry Trees at Yoshino, or Yoshitsune and One Thousand Cherry Trees). The garment was embroidered in gold with a wheel pattern called Genji-guruma (Genji cart wheels).
From a sewa-mono, a play about the lives of the commoners, the Kabuki copied the white-and-rust checkered costume worn by Danshichi Kurobei in Natsu Matsuri Naniwa no Kagami (The Summer Festival of Osaka).
Though the Kabuki has been accused of flagrantly duplicating anything and everything valuable that the Bunraku (puppet theater) had to offer, it must be kept in mind that this imitation was reciprocal and that Bunraku borrowed quite as freely from Kabuki kata. One of the best known instances of the latter was Bunraku's Kanadehon Chūshingura, in which the puppeteers emulated Sōjūrō's entire kata for the seventh act, including the famed purple kimono. This costume, incidentally, was readapted for the Kabuki at a later period.
Anything unexpected stimulated the interest of the audiences to a high degree. It is little wonder that hayagawari (haya, quick; kawari, change)—the technique of going off-stage hurriedly to make a complete change of costume, wig, and make-up and of returning in an entirely different role in the same scene—created such a sensation. When it was introduced, hayagawari was executed deftly by Nakamura Shinkurō in playing the two roles of Sadakurō and Yoichibei in Kanadehon Chūshingura and by Ichikawa Danjūrō II as Kagekiyo and Hatakeyama Shigetada in Daibutsu Kuyo (The Memorial Service at the Great Statue of Buddha). In the next era during 1783, Nakamura Utaemon III took the three roles of Sadakurō, Yoichibei, and Kampei in Chūshingura. In classical plays, this technique is resorted to quite often.
Disobedience to government regulations on costumes was no less characteristic of Hōreki than of other eras under the Tokugawa shōgunate. In fact, the whole of the Edo period was one long struggle between sovereigns and people. The sovereigns, uncertain of their power and ever watchful for uprisings against themselves, contended with people yearning for release from the oppressions of past years, yearning the more fervently because of new-found pleasures: beautiful clothing, interesting women, objects of art, new activities, luxurious possessions. Hōreki, coming as it did at the zenith of an extremely rich century with the cessation of wars at home and abroad, felt this growing struggle acutely.
The chōnin (merchants), who were becoming wealthy and leisured, chose deliberately to ignore the restrictions imposed on their growing love of indulgence. But the shōgunate was firm and again and again renewed repressive edicts and restrictions in order to keep the lower classes subjugated. In 1755 a new proscription against elaborate costumes both on and off stage was promulgated.
Nakajima Mihoemon, an actor who appeared in the role of a kuge-aku (court villain), was one of those to feel the teeth of the law when he was arrested for his disregard of one of the restrictions. He not only had appeared in a stylized hat known as a kammuri, usually worn by civil officials or nobles, but also had unwisely outdone himself in indulging his imagination to excess, for to make his costume interesting, he had had his hat covered with thin sheets of gold foil, and he shone in splendor as he wore it.
A few years later, in 1763, handsome Segawa Kikunojō II came close to a like mishap when he appeared in Sagi Musume in a kimono of white rinzu, a small-figured cloth resembling damask, with a black rinzu obi—this in a day when plain-woven cloth was almost de riguewr. Since he was an exceedingly famous actor, he escaped with only a public warning, but this near disaster served as a fearful deterrent to others who were abusing the law, and Hōreki ended, sedate and subdued, the following year,
11. Shosagoto costume: Fuji Musume. The dance-drama known as shosagoto sought mainly to please the eyes of the avid public; consequently the costumes became increasingly extravagant, diversified, and detailed, as exemplified in Fuji Musume (The Wisteria Maiden).
12. Shosagoto costume: Kyō-Ganoko Musume Dōjōji. The entrance costume of the shirabyōshi Hanako in Dōjōji—a heavily embroidered red silk kimono and a gold eboshi—remains essentially the same today as it was when Nakayama TomijQro I first performed this shosagoto two centuries ago.
13. Shosagoto costume: Kagamijishi. This is the costume of the maidservant Yayoi as she begins her dance with the lion mask in Kagamijishi. The kimono is the long-sleeved futisode.
CHAPTER 4
Kansei Kabuki
The Kansei Kabuki period also includes the three eras prior to Kansei (1789-1800)—that is, Meiwa (1764-71), An'ei (1772-80), and Temmei (1781-88).
Kamigata was rapidly losing its position as the vital center of all the arts. It was only natural that cultural and political activities should be combined in the eastern city of Edo, where the shōgunate had established its headquarters. Influences that had formerly flowed in all directions from the capital now stemmed from Edo, where the most energetic people of the fast-growing metropolis, known as Edokko—offspring or children of Edo—soon formulated a typical culture that left a vivid imprint on the whole of Japanese life as the Edokko spirit.
Along with the rest of the arts, the pivotal center of Kabuki moved to Edo, where new playwrights came to the fore to vie in craftsmanship with their Kamigata counterparts on an equal level. Both jidai-mono and sewa-mono were in demand. Dramas in the latter genre by two of the more prominent
