Kabuki Stories

Kabuki actors and stories of human trafficking in Japan of 1804

Play: Kanadehon Chushingura

(The historical event took place around 1701. On stage it was first shown on puppet theater around 1748.)

Chushingura ranks among the most familiar of all stories in Japan. This samurai plot is too complicated to summarize here. It is too complicated, period. For details check it on Wikipedia under “Forty-seven_Ronin” or “Chushingura” with a dash over the Chu. You may be able to find it on video at the Japanese video rental place on Santa Monica Blvd near Federal.

In Act Seven of this famous play, the character Yuranosuke, leader of the the samurai plotting to avenge the death of their lord, is at Ichiriki-jaya, a Kyoto tea house, and pretends that he has no interest in the vendetta, spending all his time and money on wine and fallen geishas. One of them is Okaru.

Danzo was a famous Kabuki actor who played the Yuranosuke role at the Kita Theater, Kyoto, in 1804.

Woodcut editions with scenes from that play, equivalent to today’s pin-ups, circulated at that time. To add to Danzo’s macho stage image there was some character reinforcement. A parody of a famous scene of the original Chushingura script was placed next to his image,. In that scene he pledges to buy Okaru’s contract and marry her for a night. This way she would not have to work as a “Geisha” anymore.

Okaru: You’re here at the Ichiriki house every night,
How about making me a happy woman tonight?
Yuranosuke: Just as I was enjoying my tipple and feeling good,
what terrible manners to ruin my mood.

Another actor Hinasuke (Arashi Koroku III, 1741-96) was popularly known as Koroku-tama (Koroku, the Jewel). Hinasuke’s moment of death is memorialized as befitting an actor:

During a dress rehearsal for a new play, Hinakuse was perfoming lines from the Noh dance Yuya, but he fell ill a the phrase ‘How heartless the sudden shower that scatters the flowers; nay, the spring shower weeps for the fallen cherry blossoms. Can there be any who regrets not the fallen blossoms?’ He then added on his own ‘How blessed is an un-opened bud.’ then expired.

On a plane over the Pacific Ocean, Oct. 1, 2007

Last Site Update: 12/5/2017
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