Nureki Chimuo Archive

Led by Kataoka Tobei, I went to the dressing room of the Tsurukame Theater for the first time.

Unlike the entrance to a theater dressing room I had imagined, it was clearly the entrance to a two-story wooden apartment building that couldn’t be called particularly upscale.

“The first floor of this apartment building is the dressing room, kid. Take off your shoes before you go up,” Tobei said. With practiced ease, he placed his removed shoes into the built-in geta box against the right wall of the entrance, then ascended the hallway.

I followed behind him.

A hallway ran straight ahead from the entrance, flanked on either side by several rooms with wooden doors.

At the dimly lit end of the hallway, I could see a washroom and a shared toilet.

I later learned that the south-facing four and a half mat room immediately to the left of the entrance was the room of the head clerk, Nakamura Dengo.

Across the hallway from that head clerk’s room, on the north side, was a six-mat Japanese style room that served as the wig-maker’s room. There a man known as “Man-san” resided.

A tokoyama is a person who ties the wigs actors wear on stage. They are important artisans, not only tying the wigs but also placing them on the actor’s heads, removing them, maintaining them, and storing them. Without a tokoyama, kabuki performances cannot take place.

Man-san was a man with sharp cheekbones and piercing eyes, who spoke his mind bluntly. He even critiqued the artistry of the troupe’s actors.

Both the frontstage and backstage staff seemed to hold him in high regard.

Tobei appeared to be an old acquaintance of this Man-san. Opening the door to the wig-maker’s room, he greeted him familiarly. “Hey, Man-chan, hello. I brought someone along,” and introduced me.

While running a comb through the wig, Man-san fixed his piercing eyes on me and asked, “Boy, have you worked backstage before?”

People working out of sight of the audience are called the backstage crew (makuchi), but actors who actually perform on stage are also called makuchi.

Having grown up surrounded by the dusty theater magazines and books my father owned, and through my experience with the public relations troupe, I had naturally picked up such theater world terminology.

When Man-san asked if I had makuchi experience, I silently took my Japanese Film School admission letter out of my jacket pocket.

Then, I respectfully presented it to Man-san.

I had carelessly forgotten to mention it, but upon finishing elementary school (this was the year after the Pacific War began, and it was no longer called elementary school but had been renamed to National School), I took the entrance exam for the Japanese Film School near Sangubashi Station on the Odakyu Line and had passed.

(The principal of the Japanese Film School at that time was Eizo Tanaka.)

This was a secret from my parents.

While it was natural to be drawn to the world of the silver screen, there was another reason I took the film school entrance exam.

It was because graduating from that school would grant you something called a Special Technical Certificate, which would exempt you from the government’s harsh orders like conscription or forced labor.

Ever since the lower grades of elementary school, I hated physical activity. I hated gym class, I absolutely hated sports days, and I hated the idea of becoming a soldier who had to carry a heavy rifle and march endlessly even more. Working in a factory making weapons that smelled of iron was just as repulsive to me as going to war.

I secretly took the exam without telling my parents, thinking that becoming an actor and obtaining that Special Technical Certificate (or maybe it was a Skills Certificate) would let me escape that kind of unpleasant labor. But the results didn’t turn out so well.

I applied for the acting department at film school and passed all three days of exams. But during the final personal interview, Isamu Kosugi persuaded me, “You’ve passed, but you’re still too young. Come back in two or three years.” So I ended up deferring my enrollment.

Isamu Kosugi was a leading actor at the time, considered a master of his craft.

He was the head of the acting department at the film school and one of the examiners. Of course, I had seen Nikkatsu films starring Isamu Kosugi, including “Roadside Stone.”

“I think it would be interesting to have a boy like you in the classroom,” he said to me with a gentle, quiet smile. His deep, rich voice was exactly the same as it was on the screen.

Mixed in with nearly a hundred other applicants, mostly men and women around twenty, I was still just a kid. Small in stature too.

I was proud. I carried my acceptance letter like a protective charm from a shrine and went to the dressing room at the Tsurukame Theater.

But Man-san, the wig maker, glanced only briefly at the piece of paper I handed him, the combined printed notice of acceptance and admission permit, and coldly said, “That won’t do you a damn bit of good.”

Then, turning to Tobei, he brusquely snapped his chin and said, “Well then, take him straight to Master Fukunosuke’s room. Everything’s been arranged.”

That day, stepping into the theater world, where skill and experience ruled supreme, rendering my film school acceptance letter utterly useless, remains strangely etched in my memory.

After exchanging a few words with Man-san, Tobei then took me to Ichikawa Fukunosuke’s room.

It was Fukunosuke who had been seeking an apprentice.

Through the mediation of Man-san and Tobei, I became Fukunosuke’s disciple from that day onward and began receiving a salary at the Tsurukame Theater.

Though I had seen Ichikawa Fukunosuke, the onnagata, countless times at the Kotobuki Theater in Honjo Midoricho, where my father had taken me, this was my first time seeing him sitting calmly in his dressing room.

“I’ve been thinking about names for you,” Fukunosuke said in a thin, drawn-out voice, so very onnagata-like. “What about Fukujiro?”

From that day on, I became Ichikawa Fukujiro.

Here I would like to explain about the kabuki actor Ichikawa Fukunosuke. I will quote from the “Kabuki Actor Directory” published as a special October supplement to the magazine “Engekikai” in Showa 55 (1980).

His real name is Haruo Mizushima. His address is 3-15-2 Omori Honcho, Ota Ward, Tokyo. His stage name is Naritaya. His family crest is the gourd-shaped paulowina crest. His teachers were Ichikawa Udanji II and Ichikawa Danjuro X. His height is 1.54 meters. His weight is 48 kilograms. Career highlights: Made his stage debut in October 1920 (Taisho 9) as Ichikawa Tsurunosuke, playing the town maiden in the Nakaza production “Rokuhara Monogataro.” Promoted to the main stage in November 1932 (Showa 7) as O-san and Koharu in the Miyadoza production “Shigure no Kotatsu.” Changed his name to Ichikawa Fukunosuke in September 1935 (Showa 10). Born on March 21, 1904, in Daiboji-cho, Shimanouchi, Osaka. His father, Asai Hidematsu, was a printer. Final education: Graduated from Kansai Commercial School.

Within this “Kabuki Actor Directory,” there is a section titled “People Supporting Kabuki.” Ichikawa Fukunosuke is introduced there as follows, accompanied by a stage photo of him portraying Okaya in the sixth act of Chushingura.

Ichikawa Fukunosuke. One of the active members of the Katabami-za, his experience in diverse roles has proven invaluable, making him indispensable to the Naritaya lineage today. While his dialect-tinged delivery is noticeable, it is effectively utilized in his portrayal of elderly mothers in domestic plays. This was clearly demonstrated in his well-measured exchanges with his counterpart in the young actors’ performance of Okaya in the sixth act of Chushingura. While he may lack the gravitas for an elderly mother in period plays, the role where his acting prowess truly shines is as Koyoshi in “Hattaicha.”

It states here that he “was one of the active members of the Katabami-za,” but from my (Nureki) perspective, his longest and most brilliant period was when he performed as a standing onnagata at the Kotobuki Theater in Honjo Midoricho.

After the Kotobuki Theater was destroyed in an American air raid, he became an onnagata for the newly formed Hanagat troupe, Bando Takejaku Ichiza, based at the Tsurukame Theater in Kameari, Adachi Ward. This troupe would later change its name to Katabami-za.

Even though the troupe name changed, many of the members had shared the stage since the Kotobuki Theater days.

Broadly speaking, it was essentially just a change in the troupe’s name. The plays they performed stubbornly preserved the charm and tradition of what were known as “small plays.”

And this “Katabami-za” became the last troupe of traditional “small-scale theater” in Tokyo. While it was indeed “small-scale theater,” it was during this Fukujiro era, spent as a disciple of Fukunosuke, that I gained my closest connection to Kabuki.

Though it was only a brief period, the influence of this Fukujiro era has always been a pillar of my life thereafter.

In truth, this “Talking Theater” of mine began from a deep desire to write about, to record, those few years of that era.