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The play was a sequel to the author’s horror classic Yotsuya Kaidan, which had been a big success several months earlier in an innovative combination with the revenge drama Chushingura. However, in the absence of the popular Onoe Kikugoro V, the play lasted barely three weeks despite the appearance of other big actors and a favorable critical reception.
The predecessor to this piece was Godairiki Koi no Fujime (Godairiki and the Seal of Love) by Namiki Gohei in Osaka in 1794. It was based on an actual incident when a Satsuma samurai slashed a courtesan and four others to death in Sonezaki. Gohei went to Edo at the end of that year with a contract worth the considerable sum of 300 ryo, and staged his show there as the New Year’s production. He changed the location to Edo and the courtesan to a savvy geisha from Edo’s Fukagawa district. His assistant was none other than Tsuruya Nanboku, 41 years at the time. In 1806, Gohei revised the piece yet again as Kakinaoshite Sango Taisetsu. Nanboku then reworked that piece into the current play nineteen years later at age 71. The piece was presented in yet another revised version in May 1840, but that was not well received. The drama fell out of favor other than a single production at the New National Theater in 1926. It made its modern comeback on the Kabuki stage in August 1976 at the National Theater, and that success propelled it into the standard repertory.
●main graphic ［from left］Sasanoya Sangoro（Onoe Kikugoro）、Koman（Nakamura Tokizo）、Satsuma Gengobei（Kataoka Nizaemon） November 2008 Kabukiza Theatre
●publication date October 2015
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