Kabuki Plus
Godairiki
notable!Praying to the Bodhisatva Godairiki was a phenomenon that emerged in 1716-40 during the mid Edo Era. Women in particular believed that their messages would be delivered without being read if sealed with the characters reading “godairiki”. Women thus came to write “godairiki” on their personal belongings as a proof of fidelity to their loved ones. In the play Godairiki Koi no Fu Jime, Koman wrote the characters on the back of her shamisen, a geisha’s most treasured possession.
True story of five murders
The model for Satsuma Gengobei was a man named Hayata Hachiemon. He was a samurai in Satsuma (present-day Kagoshima) whose desire for a courtesan named Kikuno led him to the murder of five persons including Kikuno in an area in northern Osaka on 3 July 1737. Hachiemon had been a kindly samurai. His service in Osaka had ended, but he had remained behind to assist his master when he met Kikuno, for whom he gradually spent his master’s money. Kikuno spent the money on late-night encounters with her lover among a series of cruelties. Hachiemon finally exploded. He returned to Satsuma but was arrested and brought back to Osaka, where he was executed.
Iemon’s terraced home
The home in Yotsuya to which Koman and Sangoro escape from the enraged Gengobei was Kamiya Iemon’s house. It is said to be haunted by the ghost of Oiwa, the murder victim in Yotsuya Kaidan, a hugely successfully play by the same author that had premiered just two months earlier. A ghost does appear in the later play, but Sangoro and Koman actually fight back rather than run – that is, the ghost doesn’t compare to the demonish anger of Gengobei. The ghost turns out to be the home’s owner, who was pretending to be a ghost to get rid of the squatters on his property.
Genuine Head
notable!A highlight of this work is the scene in which Gengobei dines in front of Koman’s severed head. Gengobei offers rice to the head as though it were a child. The actor playing Koman sticks his head out in place of the prop, so that when rice is presented, the head opens its mouth to the audience’s shock. In the original script, an actor was not used, and Gengobei simply splashed tea on the head.
Attraction of nihilistic murder
This piece was not popular during the Edo Era. It was revived as Western-style shingeki theater in 1969 and made into a film in 1971 under the title Shura by director Matsumoto Toshio. The film was highly praised for its presentation of Gengobei’s nihilistic and spooky presence, the chaotic mixture of desire and betrayal, and a world in which cause and effect seem disconnected. Its success spurred a Tsuruya Nanboku boom in the 1970s. The show was revived on the Kabuki stage in 1976 at the National Theater under the direction of critic and researcher Gunji Masakatsu. Onoe Tatsunosuke I, playing Gengobei, appeared on the hanamichi carrying Koman’s head against his chest to the sound of heavy rain, an unusual effect for Kabuki. This highlighted the bizarreness of the moment.
Tsukuda scenery and boats
The prologue, “The Banks of Tsukuda”, presents the spectacle of boats on Edo Bay on a cool day. When Tokugawa Ieyasu established the shogunate in Edo, he ordered fishermen in Tsukuda Village in Osaka to move to Edo and live on reclaimed land on Sumida River, where he granted them exclusive fishing rights. That is the origin of the present Tsukudajima, which now houses a string of residential skyscrapers. Still, there remain traces of a fisherman’s village. The downstream portion of Sumida River is known as Okawa, and just where it crosses under Eitaibashi (Eitai Bridge) is Tsukudajima. Just beyond that was Edo Bay. People used to take a boat from Fukagawa and cruise through to the shores of Tsukudajima. It was known in spring for the torches used for whitebait fishing, and in summer for the pleasant breezy path. The set for the stage show is covered with a wave-patterned cloth, and sound effects are used to replicate the river winds and old-city atmosphere along with drumbeats representing waves. The scene on the water fits beautifully with the sounds of the sea. Koman and Sangoro ride on a small “choki” (boar tusk) boat, a mode of transport widely used to travel to the pleasure district of Yoshiwara. The choki boatman, as with Sangoro, has a dandy look. In contrast, Gengobei is on a slightly larger “yanebune” or roofed boat, another boat type that was used for Sumida River cruises. There is yet a larger boat known as “yakatabune”.
