Nureki Chimuo Archive

The second at the Mukojima Shirahige Theater is,

1. Mikazuki Hanji: Origin of the Black Ships, Act Four

2. Love Courier: The Yamato Road / The Seal-Breaking Scene

Following that, the third performance is,

3. Comedy: The Mountain Maiden (One Act)

Sakuhei………Onoe Takenosuke Daughter Otoyo………Onoe Otojo Takano Yoichi………Sawamura Tetsuzaburo Iketada………Bando Chikuwaka Wife Ohide………Ichikawa Fukunosuke Village Youth………Umezawa Hideo

That was the play. My diary only records the title and cast. It’s not a proper performance record, but rather it was jotted down like a memo.

Like the first play, “Mikazuki Hanji,” I have absolutely no memory of this “Mountain Maiden” either.

I suspect it was probably a comedy from the Soganoya school.

Even if I say it was a Soganoya-style comedy, few people would know it today.

When I was a child, my father often took me to see these comedies.

(My father, truly, was an indiscriminate theater lover. If it was performed on stage, he’d take me to see it, no matter the genre. Each time he took time off work, our household grew

poorer and poorer. But thanks to such a father, I saw the plays performed at the Togekijo in Tokyo by Soganoya Goro, the blind actor who suffered from throat cancer during his very final years when he came up from Osaka.)

I have a book called “Geino Jiten” (Entertainment Dictionary) in my possession.

It’s a substantial, cloth-bound volume published by Tokyodo in 1953, supervised by Kawatake Shigetoshi and compiled by the Theater Museum.

It contains the following entry on “Soganoya Goro.”

I’ll quote just a small part of it.

“...While his acting foundation lay in kabuki, his style was characterized by a greasy quality, and he often proved tiresome with his peddling of vulgar moral lessons.”

The tradition of Osaka comedy passed down from Soganoya Goro’s theater to Shibuya Tenge, and then to Fujiyama Hiromi of the Shochiku Shinkigeki led by his disciple.

It mentions “peddling vulgar moral lessons,” and the reason I never grew to like Fujiyama Kanmi’s plays was precisely because I disliked that very “peddling of moral lessons” he had inherited.

(Even though it was unpleasant, whenever Fujiyama Kanmi came to perform at Tokyo’s Enbujo theater, I often went to see him. The skill of Kanmi’s acting was truly exceptional.)

No, this isn’t what I intended to write about here.

Writing about the history of Osaka comedy or offering criticism here would be pointless.

“...Soganoya plays were based on kabuki.” That’s the part I wanted you to read.

In other words, precisely because it was comedy based on kabuki, kabuki actors like Bando Takejaku, Ichikawa Fukunosuke, and others could perform “The Mountain Maiden” without much resistance or feeling out of place.

In the Soganoya family’s comedies, the characters’ “entrances” and “exits” are marked by particularly loud shamisen and taiko drumming, just like in kabuki plays. Songs are also incorporated.

Therefore, this “Mountain Maiden” was likely a play where all the actors, including Takejaku, Fukunosuke, and others, performed wearing kimono.

However, I have absolutely no memory of this play whatsoever.

As Fukunosuke’s apprentice, whenever my master Fukunosuke was performing, I had to sit seiza-style in the wings and watch the performance properly.

Observing my master’s artistry and engraving it into my mind was my study and training, except when I myself was on stage.

It’s understandable that I have no memory of “Mikazuki Hanji” when Fukunosuke wasn’t in it, but what does it mean that I remember absolutely nothing about “Mountain Maiden?”

It must have been a terribly unimpressive, dull play. Or perhaps, “Why must skilled actors like Master Fukunosuke and Master Takejaku perform in such a boring play?” That resentful thought, even in my childish mind, may have erased my memory of it from that time.

This habit of mine continues to this day.

When I see something dull, I forget it cleanly and completely. Only the good things remain in my memory forever.

I quickly forget dull people, but I remember interesting people forever and continue to associate with them.

But this isn’t just me. Everyone is like that, I suppose.

In my case, it’s just a bit more extreme.

Come to think of it, I never once saw Fukunosuke on stage wearing Western clothes.

Even offstage, Fukunosuke, true to his onnagata role, always wore dignified kimono.

Leaving his home in Omori, taking the train to Minami Senju Station on the Joban Line, then walking from there, passing the two huge gas tanks towering over Mukojima to the left, crossing Shirahige Bridge, turning immediately left, then right onto the narrow street where Shirahige Theater stood, even during that commute, he was always in kimono.

Even as a minor theater actor, he never once compromised the appearance and bearing befitting a kabuki actor.

The story digresses slightly again, but in the entry for Soganoya Goro in the “Geino Jiten” edited by the Theater Museum, it states:

“...Thirty-three years as a troupe leader, his self-written scripts under the pen name Issakai Gyojin were compiled into a complete collection.”

In my home, there was a complete collection of scripts written by Issakai Gyojin. Of course, was my father’s.

It was a thick book in two volumes.

It was a collection of scripts for sentimental comedies that Soganoya Goro actually performed on stage.

I rewrote several of them to fit the social climate of the time, the “Peaceful Japan” and the “Democratic Japan” that became buzzwords immediately after the war.

I then showed them to Toyama, a senior staff member at the Tsurukame Theater.

The backstage manager was a person who worked under the patron, overseeing the dressing rooms and actors in general, a sort of producer role.

They must be well-versed in dressing room etiquette and also know the actors’ personal circumstances.

He also served as a liaison between the patron and the troupe leader, deciding which plays to stage and considering the casting.

They also handled matters concerning shinsho. Shinsho refers to an actor’s performance fee.

From the actors’ perspective, they were people who stood on the patron’s side. If an actor had something to say to the patron, they would first tell the okuyaku17.

I will never forget this okuyaku named Toyama, who was around forty years old.

He took the script I timidly offered him, spread it out earnestly with both hands, and read it carefully.

He treated me, a sixteen year old child, not with condescension, contempt, or ridicule, but as a writer, with proper respect.

That script was used in the next production at the Tsurukame Theater.

“Toyama-san, actually, this is a reworking of a piece by Issakai Gyojin. I just tried writing it as an experiment,” I said.

Backstage manager

“I knew it right away. But since you’ve rewritten it for today’s times, it should be fine. We can use it. Soganoya Goro should still be alive, but surely he wouldn’t come all the way here to see it,” Toyama said with a slight smile.

Soganoya Goro passed away from throat cancer at Osaka University Hospital in Showa 23 (1948). He was seventy-two years old.

A week later, Toyama gave me an envelope containing the script fee. More accurately, it was the performance fee for my script.

I was surprised and gratefully accepted it.

Before becoming a disciple of Ichikawa Fukunosuke, I had written several scripts for Hitachi’s public relations theater troupe, including “Blood-red Smoke at Takada’s Horse Market” and “The Well-Known Bell Forest,” among others.

But I had never received any script fees.

Since I was receiving a monthly salary from the Public Relations Section of the Welfare Department at Hitachi’s Kameari Factory, there was no way I could be paid script fees.

The script fee I received from Toyama, who worked behind the scenes at the Tsurukame Theater, became the very first script fee I ever received for writing a play.

However, I have no memory of how much money was in that envelope. It wasn’t written in my diary either.

Looking back now, I should have made sure to record the amount of that memorable first script fee.

I have this feeling that writing down money matters in detail is embarrassing, base.

This vanity is the shallow part of someone born and raised in Asakusa for generations.

I’ve written something unnecessary.

I had intended to write only the names of the plays performed at the Tsurukame Theater and the Shirahige Theater, jotted down in my tattered diary from 1945, in this “Talking Theater.”

That alone would have sufficed.

But being a born chatterbox with a frivolous nature, I ended up writing all sorts of unnecessary, trivial things.