Nureki Chimuo Archive

Regarding the scene “Shigure no Kotatsu,” from “The Love Suicide at Amijima,” performed by the Bando Takejaku troupe, I would like to elaborate a little further.

In the online “Kabuki Actor Directory: Memorable Masters Edition” that R-san printed and sent me, it states about Ichikawa Fukunosuke:

“In November 1932, he was promoted to the rank of named actor for his roles as O-san and Koharu in the scene ‘Shigure no Kotatsu.’”

This means Fukunosuke played two roles in this scene. The wife O-san and Koharu of Kinokuniya.

This play allows a single actor to perform both roles of O-san and Koharu.

In fact, I later saw Nakamura Sensaku (now Sakata Tojuro) perform both O-san and Koharu several times on the Grand Kabuki stage. The role of Jihe in those performances was played by Sensaku’s father, the late Ganjiro.

I also recall seeing Kanjiro (a favorite actor of mine! He was brilliant!) as Kamiji, with Nakamura Kanzaburo (the previous generation) playing both O-san and Koharu. (O-san was strangely alluring!)

I also remember seeing the late Utaemon perform both O-san and Koharu.

Gosaburo, the father-in-law utterly appalled by Jihe’s actions, tries to separate his daughter O-san from Jihe. He forcibly takes O-san’s hand and exits toward the inner part of the house.

Then Koharu, who had been watching from outside the house, rushes inside, and:

Koharu: “Jihe-san!”

Jihe: “Ah, Koharu, why are you here?”

They take each other’s hands, and the tragedy builds toward its climax.

Since O-san and Koharu wear different wigs and costumes, when one actor plays both roles, a quick change is naturally required here.

However, both the Tsurukame Theater and the Yotsugi Heiwa Theater were not originally built as theaters. Their backstage areas are cramped, with little space to spare, making such quick changes impossible.

Therefore, my notes from that time state that Onoe Otojo played the role of Koharu.

Otojo was also a reliable onnagata supporting the Takejaku troupe’s performances. Younger than Fukunosuke, she portrayed the courtesan Koharu with alluring charm.

Though my notes state this, my memory holds a different image: Fukunosuke performing both O-san and Koharu in quick succession. Particularly vivid behind my eyelids, even now, is the almost heartbreaking beauty of Koharu in her black costume.

Deep within my heart is the image of Fukunosuke playing both roles.

I am convinced that the O-san and Koharu in “Shigure no Kotatsu” must have been Fukunosuke’s dual roles.

The poignancy and beauty of Fukunosuke in the “Kawasho” scene, and the overwhelmingly sorrowful O-san in the “Kamiyauchi” scene, suggesting the sadness of human existence. Perhaps these two images merged, dragging me into a hallucinatory world and refusing to let me awaken.

Even now, I believe my notes from that time were mistaken, and my memory is the more reliable one

Whenever “Shinju Amagashima” is performed in the Grand Kabuki, I make sure to see both the “Kawasho Scene” from the first act and the “Kamiya Scene” from the second act. I watch them again and again, from the standing room only seats.

I curl up in a corner of the audience, seeking both the pleasure of seeing a well-crafted masterpiece of Chikamatsu drama and, at the same time, the purpose of remembering the artistry of Fukunosuke and Takejaku, the two actors who performed so passionately on that cramped, poor little stage over sixty years ago, giving such profound emotion to the heart of a seventeen year old boy, and feeling my chest grow warm and tremble.

I seem to have written quite a lot of unnecessary things.

No matter how much I get worked up writing about this, it’s no use.

After all, no one will ever understand.

Not even a single shred of it.

Because seeing Fukunosuke and Takejaku on stage is something absolutely no one can ever do.

Only a handful of stage photos remain. Of course, not even promotional photos exist. That was the postwar era.

Or perhaps, precisely because no footage or recordings survive at all, it has remained etched in my heart for so many long years. Deeply, heavily, yet forever fresh in my memory.

Beautiful things are best seen with your eyes closed.

I recall that the second replacement play of the month at the Tsurukame Theater, the closing performance of the day titled “Kamo River Night Talk,” was also a fine revenge drama that skillfully portrayed the characters’ psychology.

It wasn’t a traditional kabuki period piece. If pressed, I’d call it “new kabuki.”

Hideo Umezawa, a senior colleague a few years my senior who idolized swordplay king Noboru Umezawa, was so excited he declared this play better than “Kamiji.” Watching from the wing curtain, he kept nodding his head and murmuring,

“This is great, this is great, Fuku-chan. I love plays like this. If they made it snow during the final duel, it would really heighten the atmosphere.”

The Tsurukame Theater simply didn’t have the equipment to make it snow.

They used the sound of the taiko drums from the orchestra pit to represent the snow scene, and I think it worked quite well.

I still remember it being a good play, but partly because the impression of “Kamiji” was so strong. I’ve forgotten the details.

I also appeared in this play as an onnagata and I only remember the lines I was given.

It was the line I delivered as a young courtesan’s attendant, entering from stage left, “Excuse me, Okinu-san. Your brother has come looking for you from Arima,” spoken to Fukunosuke’s Okinu.

My role was to deliver just that and immediately exit the stage.

After this run, the Takejaku troupe, which would normally have moved on to the Shirahige Theater in Mukojima, ended up performing instead at a small theater called the Heiwa Theater in Yotsugi, Katsushika Ward.

It was the troupe’s first time at this particular theater.

As the youngest actor in the company, I had no idea why things had turned out this way.

I simply followed the instructions of my master, Ichikawa Fukunosuke.

Living in Matsudo at the time, I took the bus to Ichikawa’s Konodai, then transferred to the Keisei Oshiage Line, getting off at Yotsugi Station.

It’s unclear whether Yotsugi had been bombed, but the town was deserted.

Near the station, small shops liened the streets, presenting the ordinary scene of a typical town.

It felt less densely populated than a downtown area like Mukojima.

It had the distinct atmosphere of the outskirts of Tokyo. A cold north wind blew into every corner of the town.

Walking as instructed, about ten minutes from the station, I found a small theater with a sign reading Heiwa Theater.

Its exterior was bleak and devoid of any charm or character.

The auditorium felt oddly spacious.

The stage was also larger than those at the Tsurukame Theater or the Shirahige Theater, and I was a bit surprised to see it had a rather impressive hanamichi.

Behind this hanamichi, on the opposite side from the audience, was a long, narrow dressing room.

Makeup tables were lined up in a row.

There was only this one dressing room. All the actors applied their makeup and changed into their costumes here.

An entrance to the dressing room connected to the left side of the stage. At the very back, right next to the raised curtain of the hanamichi, was the actors’ restroom.

It was a strange theater, built differently from both movie theaters and traditional playhouses.

It wasn’t until much later, a full forty years after this time, that I learned the story behind this theater’s creation.

I learned that Heiwa Theater had been converted from a town’s communal warehouse for wartime rationing supplies.

The one who told me this was a customer at a bar in Asakusa called “Sawamasa.”

One night, I was chatting with the owner of Sawamasa, a theater enthusiast, about that little theater that had been in Yotsugi after the war, reminiscing our stories.

Then, a white-haired customer drinking at the next table suddenly turned his face toward us and said, “I’ve lived in Yotsugi for a long time, so I know this. That theater was a warehouse during the war.”

He was a customer I’d never seen before at Sawamasa.

“Huh, no wonder I thought it was a strange little theater,” I said, laughing, but I thought this was a coincidence straight out of a novel.

The owner of Sawamasa listened with an amused look, as if thinking, “Is that really true?”

That middle-aged male customer then spent some time telling me and the owner of Sawamasa stories about Yotsugi back in those days.

He said that most of the theaters in central Tokyo had been burned by air raids, and because of that, quite a few famous actors and performers had come to that little theater in Yotsugi.

The owner of Sawamasa, who listened to that story from the Yotsugi customer alongside me, is no longer with us either. He was a close friend of fifty years.

There was no one else who could talk about Kabuki and the New National Theater with such joy.

The Sawamasa sign was taken down. In its place stood a flashy red and blue signboard at the storefront, and a foreigner in a white chef’s coat was slicing large chunks of meat with a knife to sell.

The other day, passing by, I saw those lively decorations had already been taken down, and the foreigner was nowhere to be seen. The world of impermanence.

The shop’s glass doors remain closed, bleak and uninviting.

Staring at the silent glass doors, I said to R-san, walking beside me, “Looking back now, I really understand how strong the bond with the old man who ran this place was.”

R-san remained silent, her eyes fixed on the four decidedly aged glass doors of that two-story wooden house, blackened and dirty with dust.

I’ve gone off on a tangent again.

I need to get back to the Yotsugi Heiwa Theater.

That theater was my last stop before leaving the Takejaku troupe.

Which means I parted ways with Ichikawa Fukunoske.