ourselves in characters in dramatic production; we cry and we laugh, usually because of our identification with them. People feel more comfortable if they see traits which they believe to be their own or if they fancy themselves in a similar light. Whether experience, instinct, or the astute Japanese psychology brought Kabuki actors to the realization of what was effective is impossible to say, but when actors used costumes familiar to the people, the audience felt a greater personal concern in the drama, for the playgoers had little vision beyond their own environment. Kabuki therefore developed an imaginative atmosphere of the immediate present which has always endured.
Since Kabuki reached its peak of perfection during the Edo, or Tokugawa, period (1603-1868), practically all the characters, regardless of the age of the play, appear on the stage in costumes of that period. The court beauties of the ninth century, as well as wives of samurai of the eleventh century, are dressed like women in Edo times, and their coiffures also reflect the Edo fashion.
Changes of costumes, materials, and patterns are made for various roles, and costumes are designated in accordance with individual roles. Not only the dress—for garments alone do not make the characterization—but also wigs and make-up fulfill extremely important functions in Kabuki. Patterns are not inflexible. Leading actors do make changes on occasion, but in general most present-day costumes remain identified with those originated by the past masters who popularized the roles. An actor must be a great idol indeed to be able to effect a change or to develop a part in a way that does not conform to the classical tradition.
One of the distinguishing traits of Kabuki, then, is the ease with which habitual playgoers recognize the type of play and the roles by the actors' costumes. The audience depends upon the array of splendid costumes to give vivid impressions of certain characters and to emphasize stage effects. Some costumes in their original form followed the social trends of the day; others were figments of the imagination, beautified and highly exaggerated. Imitations of costumes worn in the Nō dramas and in the ningyō-jōrurishibai (puppet theater) were used in plays adapted to Kabuki from these media. Even though a plot depends upon a specific period or impersonation of an actual individual, costumes which are not historically correct are used unhesitatingly even today.
It is not unusual to have queer costumes, the like of which never existed anywhere at any time. For instance, the costume called yoten—worn in historical plays by brave men, valorous brigand chiefs, and notorious thieves, as well as lowly policemen—exists only on the Kabuki stage. It was never a garb worn in real life. Most costumes worn in the jidai-mono (plays based loosely on historical or semihistorical events) and aragoto (drama designed for a highly stylized, vigorous form of acting) are not realistic. In many instances they are merely symbolic and grotesque.
In the same scene, some actors may be somewhat conventionally attired, while others may wear unbelievably fantastic costumes—a peculiarity which is accepted as quite natural in Kabuki.
What is the cause of these oddities? One of the principal reasons for the fantastic and imaginative costumes—especially those of samurai and noble classes, since imitation of their dress on the stage was proscribed by law—was that luxurious display of rich materials in Kabuki was strictly banned by the feudal government, so that ingenious methods had to be found to make the costumes theatrical and representative of important personages through color, pattern, and design.
Second, the costumes fulfilled the public's love of glamor, for Kabuki originated among and for the unaffected townsmen and the nouveau-riche merchants. Consequently, not only the simple, emotional stories of the plays but also the extravagant costumes satisfied the public's sense of beauty.
Actors made special effort to enrapture their audiences by impassioned acting. In consequence, the costumes, as well as the acting for each role evolved into accepted styles or forms which were completely removed from reality. Thus the weird make-up of kumadori: nonrealistic, stylized makeup used for aragoto (vigorous, swashbuckling) roles, the costumes exaggerated to a maximum degree for the heroic aragoto plays, the supremely colorful richness of kimono for female roles, the costumes of samurai and nobles are all products of the Edo period, resulting from the demands of the nonaristocratic audiences and the sensitive, artistic creativeness of the actors.
Unlike the jidai-mono based on ancient events among samurai or court nobles, there is a general type of play, the sewa-mono, which has a lowbred offspring, the kizewa-mono, which narrates many facets of the daily lives of the lowest commoners, including bad women, thieves, gamblers, prostitutes, vagabonds, beggars, and the like. The actors' dress worn in kizewamono reflects quite accurately that of the commoners of the lowest strata.
New fashions worn by the townspeople, especially the kabuki-mono (outlaws or "free-life" people), were readily adapted to the stage, although usually dramatized for more striking effects. Kabuki-mono received their name from one early-seventeenth-century meaning of kabuki signifying free life—that is, life without respect for law. Kabuki-mono were considered outlaws, and commoners were afraid of these wayward individuals. Yet when such characters were impersonated on the stage, the people adored them—much as today's movie gangsters are esteemed.
Actors often created patterns or selected special colors for their effectiveness on the stage. These subsequently reached the height of fashion for the public at large. Not only the actors' modish kimono but also the intricate tying of the obi, the choice of accessories, and even the way of wearing the costumes were appropriated by men and women alike. For example, the use of mon or individual family crests on clothing became widespread during the eighteenth century after the actors had made such devices familiar.
In classic, or pure, Kabuki plays there are no careful recreations of Heian-period (794-1185) dress. The majority of the known Heian styles were those worn by royalty. Therefore, according to law, they could not be reproduced for stage use. Prior to the end of World War II, Bandō Mitsugorō VIII (then Bandō Minosuke VI) wished to appear in a Genji play (that is, a play based on the life and loves of the fictional Heian Prince Genji) for which he had as true reproductions as possible made of Heian clothing, but he was not allowed to appear in the costumes, since doing so was proscribed by law as an act of Use-majeste. He eventually did wear the costumes during the dance recitals of Nenchū Gyōji Emaki (nenchu, during the year; gyōji, festival customs; emaki, picture scroll), whose choreography was based on the year's seasonal festivities, but Kabuki itself was no richer in its variety of costumes.
True Heian styles were not introduced to the Kabuki stage until 1951, when two plays in the modern Japanese vernacular were produced: Nayotake (Glowing Princess of the Supple Bamboo), dramatized from the story Taketori Monogatari (Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) by Katō Michio in 1943, and Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji), dramatized from Murasaki Shikibu's famous novel of the same name by Funabashi Seiichi, one of Japan's prolific contemporary novelists.
Even though the costumes for these plays have the correct flowing, widely opened sleeve lines of Heian dress, they necessarily are modified for the electrically lighted outsized stage of modern times. Although these costumes give us a visual perception into the past, when overrefinement in wearing apparel was one of the ardent passions of the nobility, they are admittedly of much bolder theatrical design and of brighter-colored cloth than ever was seen in the ancient days, when colors were fixed according to rank.
Heian literature, including the Eiga Monogatari (Tales of Prosperity and Luxury of the Fujiwara Family), regales us with stories of noble-women who wore more than twenty layers of garments with hi-no-hakama (scarlet culottes) for formal occasions both in summer and in winter, the textiles differing only according to season. This jūni-hitoe (literally "twelve-fold costume,"although the number of layers was not fixed) was the correct formal feminine attire, but it is not used identically on the Kabuki stage for obvious reasons. Although the sumptuary laws of Edo times had permitted the wearing of such a costume, the actor, swathed in layer after layer of even the most diaphanous of materials, would have been hindered in his movements, and costuming would have been far too costly. In order not to discard the semblance
