Nureki Chimuo Archive

The performance records of the Takejaku Troupe at the Tsurukame Theater and the Shirahige Theater, from around October 1945 (Showa 20) to around March 1946, were notes I jotted down in the blank pages of a “student diary” (printed with the year Showa 15/2600 of the Imperial Era).

This cloth-bound diary, printed and bound as the “student diary,” was published in October 1939 (Showa 14) by Tanaka Soeido Publishing in Andoji Bashi Dori 3 Chome, Minami Ward, Osaka City, with a price of sixty yen.

It is that very diary, printed with detailed days of the month and days of the week, which still appears on the shelves of bookstores and stationery shops at year’s end.

I used the “student diary,” edited and printed in Showa 14 (1939), starting in Showa 20 (1945).

Basically, that “student diary” was already a used book.

Or rather, it was mostly blank.

I had been using those blank pages as a memo pad.

It never occurred to me that the notes I jotted down then, just the kyogen titles and cast lists, would see the light of day like this over sixty years later.

Had I intended them as future reference material, I would have taken more detailed notes.

I deeply regret only writing down the kyogen titles and actors’ names, without recording the dates of the performances, the admission fees, or the audience numbers.

My sixteen year old self foresaw, or rather sensed, that even if I had taken meticulous notes, they would be of no use whatsoever later on.

I simply don’t think it was worth the effort to record everything in detail.

Still, the fact that I did jot down the names of the plays must have been a testament to my deep affection for the theater.

As mentioned earlier, I was already writing comedy scripts at this time, albeit imitations of Goro plays.

These weren’t mere experiments: I wrote scripts that were staged immediately after completion, and I even received performance fees.

That said, I had no grandiose notion of making a living as a playwright in the future.

It was an era where looking ahead was utterly impossible.

The anxiety that today I might be alive, but a month from now I could starve to death, constantly haunted me.

In an era when everything had been occupied by the American military and the future of kabuki was uncertain, the sheer determination and passion of “small theater” actors like Bando Takejaku, Tsuruzo, and Ichikawa Fukunosuke, their desires to perform on stage and show themselves to the audience no matter what, captured the heart of the young boy.

The actors’ passion for their craft was pure, and it translated into the impact of their daily performances, moving me deeply.

Whether it was “Terakoya,” “Fuin Giri,” “Nozakimura,” “Kawasho from Shinju: Ten no Amijima,” or “Shigure no Kotatsu,” I truly watched from the wings, tears streaming down my face.

Even when the audience was sparse, they never cut corners. They performed kabuki properly.

Had they not moved me, I doubt I would have become such a long-lasting kabuki fan.

In a way, they were traveling kabuki actors.

No, calling them “travelling actors” feels like an insult.

What are “traveling actors?”

I looked up “dosamawari (travelling troupe)” in the Obunsha Japanese Dictionary to see if it was listed.

It was.

“Dosamawari: A travelling theater troupe without a permanent venue. A provincial circuit. A vagrant wandering from one venue to another.”

“Vagabond troupe” is harsh. “Vagabond troupe” means “good-for-nothing troupe.”

I looked up “good-for-nothing” in the same dictionary.

It says, “A delinquent. A useless person. A slacker.” Even worse.

There wasn’t a single slacker in the Takejaku troupe.

Everyone was diligent and dignified. They had pride.

They had a strict attitude toward their art.

First of all, even though they used a converted movie theater, they had two permanent venues in Tokyo.

I retract my careless use of the term “traveling troupe.”

I never truly believed they fell into that category to begin with.

Or rather, I simply don’t harbor any contempt for travelling troupes.

Far from contempt, I confess I feel something close to admiration for their performances.

“Travelling troupe”... what a romantic word, full with dreams of freedom, abandon, and pure pleasure.

Ever since I learned to read and began devouring novels as a child, I’ve felt a powerful pull toward that strange, alluring world of “travelling theater,” a realm brimming with a narrative quality so utterly removed from ordinary life it borders on the mystical.

The work that influenced me most profoundly was the Meiji-era novelist Mikihiko Nagata’s “Decline.”

Besides “Decline,” this author wrote “The Story of Ogi Noboru,” a novel featuring a traveling kabuki actor as its protagonist. I was so captivated by it that I copied the entire text by hand and read it aloud.

To proceed with this manuscript now, I pulled a volume from the “Mejii-Taisho Literature Complete Collection,” published by Shun’yodo in 1928, edited by Mikihiko Nagata and Tatoko Nogami, from my bookshelf.

Then I opened the pages and began reading “Decline.”

Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

I was pulled deeper and deeper into the emotional world of a wandering troupe of traveling actors.

Yes. I might be veering off course again, but I’ll transcribe a little here from the section introducing and explaining Mikihiko Nagata in this book.

Come to think of it, before the Tsurukame Theater era, there was a time when I was utterly absorbed in this novel, “Decline,” and it’s not unreasonable to say that it had a fateful influence on my life thereafter.

To say that if I hadn’t encountered “Decline” during my most impressionable boyhood, the path I walked might have been slightly different. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration.

First, there is a “Brief Biography of Mikihiko Nagata””

“Born on March 1, 1887, in Kudan Nakasaka, Kojimachi Ward, Tokyo City. (His father, Ashiho, was a physician from Kumamoto Prefecture, his grandfather was the chief priest of Kikuchi Shrine in the same prefecture and was known as a poet.) After graduating from Kojimachi Fujimi Elementary School and the Middle school affiliated with Tokyo High School, he entered the English Literature Department at Waseda University, devoting himself to the study of English, French, and Russian literature. From 1909, he embarked on a nomadic life, eventually joining a troupe of travelling actors in Hokkaido. Upon returning, he submitted his breakthrough work, “Decline,” to Chuo Koron, instantly gaining literary fame. He later drifted to the Kyoto-Osaka region, where he authored 89 volumes over the next seventeen years.”

A detailed chronology follows, but it will be omitted here.

After studying English, French, and Russian literature at Waseda University, he wandered through Hokkaido and finally threw himself into the ranks of traveling actors. That part is truly remarkable.

In other words, both “Decline” and “The Story of Ogi Noboru” are, in that sense, akin to private novels about Mikihiko Nagata himself.