There were two distinct types of plays in the first half of the Yarō Kabuki period, the keisei-kai (keisei, courtesan; kai, buying, purchase) and the tanzen-roppō. Plays of the first type, the keisei-kai, were concerned with the affairs of courtesans and were usually set in the irozato, as the licensed quarters of Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka were called. The Yoshiwara district in Edo, the Shimabara in Kyoto, and the Shimanouchi and Minami in Osaka were the irozato.
The costumes for the keisei-kai plays were most lavish and glamorous, and much of the traditional stage business, settings, and costumes seen in Kabuki plays depicting licensed quarters were founded in this type of Yarō Kabuki.
The second type, the tanzen-roppō, delineated a rather bawdy side of life, not for the sake of bawdiness as such but for the excitement in the characterization of people associated with it. The word tanzen propounds two entirely different meanings: one is related to theatrical arts or geigoto (gei, theatrical arts, dance, music; koto, matters), with which, peculiarly enough, we are not immediately concerned; the other, which is relevant, refers to a distinctive type of Japanese apparel that became popular in the seventeenth century: the dress worn by the dandies, who habitually lingered in bathhouses.
During the Shōō era (1652-54), in the Kanda district of Edo, in front of the mansion of the lord Hori Tango-no-Kami, there was a public bathhouse frequented by samurai, rōnin (masterless samurai), and otoko-date (chivaIrous cavaliers, swashbuckling street knights) of the city (Fig. 4). This bathhouse became known as a center of relaxation and revelry. Here yuna (female bathhouse attendants) not only washed the backs of the bathers but also engaged in less homely tasks. In rooms prepared for such purposes, they played the samisen (a three-stringed instrument similar to a balalaika), danced, and were congenial drinking companions as well as amiable bedfellows.
The apparel of the bathhouse addict was singularly fanciful and attracted much attention not only to the wearer but also to his destination—specifically, the bathhouse in Kanda in front of Hori Tango-no-Kami's mansion. The destination, shortened to tanzen (literally, in front of Tan's) became the popular designation of the dress. Later tanzen was applied to the attire worn by the habitues of any bathhouse (Fig. 5).
The conspicuous figure of the bathhouse dandy came to be known as tanzen-sugata (tanzen, bold-designed kimono; sugata, style, figure; literally, tanzen-clad figure). His hair was dressed in the tanzen-tate-gami style, a mode born at this time, when samurai who hoped to cover up their identities while they lingered in the plebeian bagnio cunningly tried to pass as patients taking a cure. By deliberately not shaving the forepart of the head and allowing the hair to grow stiffly upward about an inch, the tanzen-sugata indicated they had been too ill to shave the head properly.
4. Otokodate. The swashbuckling street knight known as otokodate (shown here as he appears in Otokodate Gosho no Gorōzō) is among the most colorful of the Edo-period types portrayed in Kabuki.
5. Tanzen-sugata. The apparel of the early-Edo bath-house dandy was singularly fanciful, and his conspicuous style was known as tanzen-sugata—that is, bold-designed-kimono style.
6. Tanzen-roppō. Taking their name from the tanzen attire of the bathhouse dandies of Edo, tanzen-roppō (bawdy plays) became a feature of Yarō Kabuki.
The dandy wore two quite distinctive decorative swords known as musori-kakutsuba katana (musori, uncurved; kaku, square; tsuba, sword guard; katana, sword)—that is, swords with square guards and uncurved blades—thrust through the obi in kannuki fashion: like gate bolts. These swords easily identified the dandy if his elegant manner of walking failed to do so, because they differed markedly from the samurai weapons.
Tanzen-roppō—that is, bawdy plays—were first produced in Edo but also became popular in western Japan in the district then known as Kamigata.
It is pertinent to the history of Kabuki to digress here for a brief explanation of the name of this district. Kamigata was the colloquial word for the present-day area of Kansai (kan, barrier; sat, west), which refers to the provinces west of the old Hakone barrier. This encompasses the large cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe. Kamigata (kami, upper or higher; kata, direction) meant the "higher place," or the direction of the emperor, who remained in his capital, Kyoto, in counterposition to the shōgunate in Edo (present-day Tokyo). Kamigata ceased to be used as the name of the western provinces when Emperor Meiji moved to Edo in 1868. The eastern provinces were collectively known as Kanto (kan, barrier; tō, east). Since Edo was the only influential city in the eastern provinces during the Edo (Tokugawa) period, Kanto is not used in the history of Kabuki as is Kamigata, which covers the three important western cities.
Tamon Shozaemon, an actor, is credited with the introduction of the distinctive style of walking and acting, as well as the costuming and manner of wearing the swords, in tanzen-roppō (Fig. 6). Tanzen has been transmitted to us today in the furi, or choreography, of such plays as Sukeroku, Saya-ate, and Modori Kago and in the dramatic role of Fuwa Banzaemon in Ukiyozuka Hiyoku no Inazuma, more commonly called Nagoya Sanza.
In 1664, twelve years after Yarō Kabuki emerged, rapid and epoch-making progress was made with the presentation of tsuzuki-kyōgen: dramas of two acts. In Osaka, Hinin no Adauchi (Revenge of a Villain), written by Fukuoka Yagoshiro, was staged at the theater known as the Araki Yojibeiza. Also during this period, Imagawa Shinobi-guruma (the meaning of the title is no longer clear), by Miyako Dennai, was presented at the Ichimuraza in Edo.
As the composition of the drama became somewhat more complex, the staging also changed. For the first time in Kabuki, draw curtains were introduced to mark the change of scenes. With these developments, Kabuki emerged from its formative years to take its place in a new era of cultural enlightenment in which the common man, for the first time in Japanese history, was the focal point. The Kabuki at last had reached maturity in form and could be proud of its name. It was, however, over two centuries before Kabuki was admitted to the realm of classical theater.
CHAPTER 2
Genro Kabuki
Japanese culture attained the peak of bourgeois fulfillment in the fifteen years of the Genro era (1688-1703), which falls in the middle of the Edo period. This era, though brief, is frequently referred to as the Japanese Renaissance. Its influence was pronounced through the succeeding Hōei (1704-10), Shōtoku (1711-15), and Kyōho (1716-35) eras, covering some thirty-two years of unparalleled maturity in the arts. Even today, aspects of the Genro era remain.
It has been said that at about this time the writing of the word Kabuki changed from kana, the Japanese syllabary script, to kanji, Chinese ideographs, though this is not accepted as true by some authorities. The three ideographs ka