Nureki Chimuo Archive

Sakura Sennosuke’s troupe play “Bullying the Stepchild” featured various ingenious touches within its simple storyline. Careful consideration was given to ensure that patrons who came to watch every night would not grow bored. It must be the wisdom of daily-changing plays. As punishment for constantly wetting the bed, the girl was tied to a tree in the garden. Though she was briefly rescued by an old medicine peddler, she was dragged back by her demonic stepmother, played by Sakura Sennosuke. And they will face even harsher punishment. “Damn it. How could she forget all the kindness I showed her? What an ungrateful brat. I was planning to sell her off to a brothel for some cash once she got a bit older, but this little ingrate… Well, it’s infuriating. Just you wait and see what I’ll do.” The stepmother once again bound the poor girl’s hands behind her back with rope and dragged her to the center of the stage. The girl cried out in a pitiful voice, “Please forgive me, have mercy!” and offered no resistance. She remained quietly bound. She is an obedient daughter who resigns herself to her stepmother’s anger, thinking it cannot be helped. She believes that because she is a stepchild, no matter how badly she is treated, she cannot defy her stepmother. That innocent, fragile demeanor, the heartrending sight of the girl being scolded in such a way, drew me in with an irresistible charm as a boy sitting in the audience. “I’ll never run away again, so please, Mother, forgive me!” Kyoko, Sennosuke’s wife, played the part of the pitiful eleven or twelve-year-old girl writhing her body and begging for forgiveness with the skill of a veteran actress. She delivered

an over-the-top performance, so skillful it was almost obscene, winning the audience’s sympathy. I was half-amazed and half-appalled by how terrible an actress she was, yet I couldn’t help but be captivated, both visually and emotionally, by the heartbreaking sight of Kyoko struggling while bound. Looking back now, the other audience members besides me must have enjoyed this play about stepchild bullying purely as a play. Only I felt eroticism in the sight of the girl being punished, secretly indulging in the sadistic pleasure within my heart. “No matter how pitifully you whine, it won’t do any good. A twisted brat like you won’t learn from words alone. The only way is to teach it to your body.” The stepmother, her rage still unchecked, pushed the girl, her hands bound behind her back, down beside the brazier and pinned her beneath her. Then, grabbing the girl’s ankle, she dragged her back and forth a few times. With a hateful twist of her lips, she spat out a terrifying line. “I’ll burn the soles of your feet so you can never run away again. Prepare yourself.” Inside the brazier, a poker with its tip painted red is thrust in. The kote, though no longer seen today, was a small iron tool resembling a miniature iron with a long handle. It was a device for smoothing out wrinkles in fabric and could be found in every household before the war. (kote, or yakigote) The stepmother grabbed the iron tongs from the brazier and pulled them out. The tips were painted red. That is to say, they were already heated by the charcoal fire.

The stepmother held the scorching tip close to her own face, pursed her lips, and blew hot air onto it. “Oh, hot, hot, it’s well heated. I’ll use this to burn the soles of your feet, so brace yourself.” Though the audience all know the red is merely painted on, and not actually hot, they tremble at the horror of this punishment devised by the stepmother. Even at sixteen, I trembled and my heart pounded. “What a hateful mother she is. Poor thing, that girl.” The farmer’s grandmother behind me uttered this in a groaning voice. The other grandmother beside her nodded in agreement, covering her nose and mouth with a tattered hand towel: “Poor thing, poor thing. We must do something for that girl. She’s just too pitiful.” Tears stream from eyes full of wrinkles. The audience’s reaction instantly reached the stage: “It’s hot, hot! Mom, have mercy! It’s hot, hot! Please stop!” Kyoko gave a heart-wrenching cry and acted with all her might. She tried to escape, but her stepmother’s hand gripped one ankle, leaving her only able to struggle. The hem of her kimono fluttered, revealing a glimpse of her thigh above the knee. The stage is dimly lit by bare bulbs alone, yet it is precisely this darkness that makes the poor girl’s thighs appear to glow white. Under the hazy, phantom-like glow of the dim light, the scene of the stepchild abuse played out. Though staged, it was imbued with an otherworldly, eerie eroticism that seemed beyond this realm, born of the indistinct darkness. A warm spring night breeze blows through the small tent theater, gently swaying the bare lightbulb hanging from above. Then the shadows on the actor’s faces subtly shift, creating a vividly eerie effect that the actors themselves are unaware of. “Hmm, no matter how pathetically you wail and cry, I won’t be fooled anymore.” The stepmother gives her stepdaughter’s body a sharp kick. Then, raising the iron she holds high above her head, she strikes a dramatic pose and declares, “This red-hot iron shall touch the soles of your feet!”

With a smug, mocking laugh, she sets the tone, and at that moment, the clapper strikes with a sharp “choooong!” “To be continued tomorrow night,” and with the sound of the clapper, chon chon chon, the curtain falls. What an awful ending, but its unique rhythm and tempo are strangely satisfying, and the audience gets swept up in the flow of the play and can’t help but applaud. And so the stepchild bullying continues night after night. “Going again tonight? You’re really dedicated, aren’t you?” Mom said to me with an exasperated look. She had told Dad that I’d been going every night to see the traveling open-air theater troupe that had come from somewhere. It wasn’t a tone that seemed to criticise me; on the contrary, it was a cheerful voice that made me want to go. “Is that so? Do you really find these travelling beggar troupes that entertaining, out here in the sticks?” Father asked me with a laugh. Actually, both my father and mother are even more fond of theater and the performing arts than I am. “Nah, it’s not really that interesting. It’s just a play where the audience sits on mats laid out on the ground, with no roof, and gets cancelled when it rains, though that’s pretty rare. I figured it’s something you don’t get to see very often.” I replied, hiding my true feelings. A couple nights later, while I was watching a performance by the Sennosuke troupe, I turned around and suddenly saw my mother and father sitting side by side in the back.. (They came) I thought. It wasn’t surprising. I’d had a premonition ever since my father asked me, “Is it really that interesting?” Both my mother and my father loved theater and were eccentric. What surprised me was that after the performance that night, my father went out of his way to visit the dressing room beside the stage and gave Sennosuke and his wife a congratulatory gift. It was the immediate postwar period, a time when everyone was poor and there was nothing to eat, and my family too endured a life of hardship.

Our family couldn’t possibly afford to give a gift to a travelling actor who’d be gone tomorrow. What foolish parents I have, I thought, utterly exasperated. That night was a Saturday, and my father had the next day off work. Around noon, just as he was getting up, Sennosuke and Kyoko came to my house to thank us for the gift we’d given them the night before. “We didn’t give you anything worth coming all this way to thank us for, yet you’re so polite,” said both my father and mother cheerfully as they entertained the travelling actor couple. For the common folk of that era, steamed sweet potatoes were the ultimate delicacy, served as their midday meal. Having endured the hardships of wartime and postwar austerity, I feel compelled to describe how precious that food was, how wretched the fare of that time truly was. Yet, since others have already chronicled their experiences in various accounts, I shall refrain from doing so here. Mother said, “Take these for the two child actors,” wrapped up the remaining sweet potatoes, and gave them as a gift. As mentioned earlier, this troupe has two children named Koume and Matsutaro, both of whom work as child actors on stage. When Kyoko accepted the gift package my mother had given her with both hands and thanked her, my stomach growled loudly, craving those sweet potatoes. I thought to myself, “what a terrible mother she is, only letting her own children eat sweet potato dumplings made by rolling and hardening powder from dried sweet potato leaves and vines.” (There I go again, complaining about how hungry I was back then. I should stop. I really ought to avoid writing such dull, unromantic stuff… But still, when I compare longing with hunger, shamefully enough, hunger comes first.) On stage, Kyoko had played such a frail, delicate girl that she thrilled me, yet in the brightness of daylight, she only looked like a small, shabby, middle-aged woman worn down by household chores. I felt a little disappointed. To put it dramatically, it felt like my dreams had been shattered. The stepdaughter on stage and the woman bowing obsequiously before my parents while eating sweet potatoes with relish were completely different people. But this, I thought, is what theater is all about.

Well, how should I write this? No, no matter how I try, I have no choice but to write the facts as they are. I too have a little vanity. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, so I’ve never written about it anywhere before. But I always knew I’d have to write about it someday. After that, the Sennosuke couple visited my house two or three times. My father, who loved the performing arts, welcomed their visits and coaxed out all sorts of stories about the hardships of travelling actors. Business at the theater gradually began to slow, and the troupe decided to leave the area and move on to their next performance location. From the stage of a certain village in Ibaraki Prefecture, where the troupe was touring, I found myself being called Sakura Sentaro and had become an actor in a beggar theater troupe. It wasn’t me who asked Sennosuke to let me join his troupe. Sennosuke himself bowed his head and said, “Just for three months, please help out with my troupe.” “Help out” means to assist, to act as a supporting actor. But I have neither the experience nor the skill to take on such a role. I refused, yet Sennosuke bowed excessively low, head down, hands pressed together, pleading with me. It was pure beggar’s theater. I groaned and couldn’t make up my mind for quite some time. (Performing is fine, but I’m not too thrilled about being in a troupe like this.) I had that pride. I didn’t have the confidence to perform unscripted improvisational theater on a daily basis, as is common practice on the so-called “touring circuit.” Actually, when I was taken to a munitions factory under some order from the authorities called the Student Mobilization Order, I never worked on producing weapons at all. Instead, I only performed entertainment acts to cheer up the workers and put on plays. Hitachi’s weapons manufacturing plants were not only in Kameari, but also scattered throughout the Tokyo area at the time, each employing thousands of workers. I was assigned to an organization that toured such factories to provide entertainment for the employees working there. (This incident is briefly mentioned in Kawade Bunko’s “‘Kitan Club’ and its surroundings.”)

That entertainment troupe was assembled by conscripting men too old to take up arms and fight, then selecting entertainers, actors, and theater professionals from among them. It was a group comprised of seasoned veterans. I, being fifteen at the time, was included simply because the troupe lacked a child actor. Sennosuke, having learned of my stage experience, asked if I’d perform for him. It must have been my father who told him about it. Any ordinary, sensible parents would likely have declined, but both my mother and father readily accepted Sennosuke’s invitation. Rather than consenting, my parents were completely laissez-faire with their children. Laissez-faire sounds nice, but it was irresponsible. No matter what mischief we got into, they never complained, never scolded, just left us to our own devices. They were people who held absolutely no convictions or confidence about how to live their lives. In a word, they were weak-willed cowards. (I feel like I must write about my father’s peculiar character someday.) In the end, I agreed to Sennosuke’s invitation. The school I was supposed to return to still had not recovered from the devastation of the war. Joining the travelling troupe meant I would leave my parents’ home and entrust my food, clothing, and lodging to Sennosuke. During this time of food shortages, my participation in the tour would ultimately become one fewer mouth to feed for my family. “Since I’m always travelling around the countryside, I can always get rice to eat,” Sennosuke told me. In a word, Sennosuke was a good man. He had a kind heart. Though his eyes were small and his nose and mouth were large, giving him a less than refined face. His way of speaking was gentle and never vulgar. I was drawn in by Sennosuke’s sincere character. Even so, I was sixteen at the time. I couldn’t play the leading man, and I was no longer cut out for child roles. I worried that even if I joined the troupe, I might be useless. I’d come to feel that if I couldn’t make it as an actor, I’d be content with menial tasks or running errands. An adventurous spirit and curiosity welled up inside me: the urge to dive into the life of a travelling actor. The anxiety about whether I could stand on stage as an actor was quickly dispelled.

My first stage appearance was, as mentioned earlier, with a theater troupe organized at a massive munitions factory, and I actually played an onnagata role. In the period drama “Blood Smoke at Takada-baba" where Nakayama Yasubei (later Horibe Yasube) avenges his uncle’s death, I was made to wear a wig and a furisode kimono to play the daughter of Horibe Yasudo. I still remember the words spoken at that time. “For a vital vendetta, a rope sash is unlucky. Take this obi instead…” so it was said. When Sennosuke heard this from my father, he may have invited me to join the troupe as a young female role performer. I wrote that the next performance location for the Sakura Sennosuke Troupe was in a village in Ibaraki Prefecture. It was one of the villages along the line of a private railway originating from Toride Town (now Toride City). I think it would be interesting to explain these matters accurately, including private railway station names, place names, and village names. But since it seems likely to cause trouble, I’ll deliberately keep things vague. But, ahhh, counting back, it was sixty years ago. Sixty years have passed since then. After sixty years, you might think you could write about anything, but that’s not really the case. For me, it’s an unforgettable past, sometimes a nostalgic memory as fragrant as blooming roses. But others may not feel the same. I mustn’t cause trouble. So I’ll keep the place, people and other details vague. Kyoko, Sennosuke’s wife, was the daughter of a prominent figure in the region who served as stationmaster at a certain private railway station located northwest of Toride Station on the Joban Line. To put it simply, the stationmaster’s daughter fell for a travelling actor, Sennosuke. She ran away from home and joined him. She herself became a travelling actress, and together with the two children she had with Sennosuke, they’re now touring the countryside. That’s the story. I learned this after I left Matsudo and moved to Ibaraki Prefecture with Sennosuke and his group, where we began staying at the stationmaster’s house.

“This is my wife’s family home,” Sennosuke told me, wearing his usual kind smile. “At first, they disapproved of our line of work and opposed it, but now they understand and are our grateful supporters.” At first, her parents opposed it, but now they reluctantly accept their daughter’s way of life. With two grandchildren to boot, they’ve become patrons of the troupe, a situation I vaguely understood. I hear he’s since retired from his role as stationmaster. That concludes my rather lengthy account of how I came to know Sennosuke. I never intended to write in such detail about the circumstances that led me to become a lowly travelling actor. Hardly something to brag about. Readers must surely be bored by now. But if I don’t write this down now, the rest of the story will just feel like a lie. I’ve spent fifty years writing nothing but popular fiction, so I’m extremely afraid of boring my readers. (I know full well that I can’t write decent novels because I’m always afraid of my readers.) So, things are about to get a little erotic. Actually, I’ve been droning about Sennosuke and my father just to get to this part. It’s the story of how Sennosuke and Kyoko’s daughter, Koume, causes me nothing but trouble. Koume is, of course, a stage name. She is thirteen years old. Sakura Sennosuke and Kyoko, are of course, stage names as well. When it comes to stories like this, I somehow feel at ease writing them. I guess I’m just the kind of person who likes these kinds of erotic stories.