Chapter 10
THE GOLDEN AGE OF PUPPET THEATER
The jōruri puppet theater reached a creative peak around 1715, beginning with the performance of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s Battles of Coxinga (Kokusenya kassen), through the rivalry of the Takemoto and Toyotake theaters, to the death of the playwright Namiki Sōsuke in 1751. It was a period when the puppet theater outshone the kabuki theater, particularly in the city of Osaka. In 1714, the popular kabuki actor Ikushima Shingorō, of the Yamamura Theater in Edo, was discovered having an affair with Ejima (1681–1741), a female attendant of the mother of the seventh shōgun, Tokugawa Ietsugu (r. 1713–1716). Ejima was exiled and the Yamamura Theater was shut down, a heavy blow to the Edo kabuki. Another reason for the puppet theater’s popularity was the Kyōhō Reforms’ 1722 ban on erotic literature and, in 1723, on the dramatization of double suicides, which affected popular fiction and literature more than it did the puppet theater.
The puppet theater also thrived because of its location in Osaka, which had become the country’s economic center. Most of Osaka’s residents were urban commoners, and the city was away from the watchful eye of the bakufu in Edo. From about 1710, a great creative rivalry started in Osaka between two puppet theaters, the Takemoto Theater and the Toyotake Theater, located in Dōtonbori, the bakufu-licensed theater district. The competition between the two theaters, which produced one new jōruri play after another, overshadowed kabuki in the Kyoto-Osaka region, which had to rely on puppet scripts to attract audiences. The practice of multiple authorship, which was characteristic of the puppet theater after Chikamatsu—usually an older master playwright overseeing two or three younger playwrights—emerged out of the need to train successors and to meet the audience’s increasing demands.
After the bakufu banned double-suicide plays, the contemporary-life (sewamono) genre faded from puppet theater, leaving the period drama or history play (jidaimono) as the central genre. The history plays, however, usually made a farmer or an urban commoner the hero of the climactic third act, enabling the playwright to incorporate contemporary manners, thought, and characters into a historical drama. In both jōruri and kabuki, history plays had a dual structure: the “world” (sekai), which was set in the past and drawn from a noted historical incident, legend, or classical tale; and the “innovation” (shukō), which was the fictional addition or contemporary twist on that “world.” These “worlds” often came from medieval historical and military chronicles such as The Tale of the Heike, Record of Yoshitsune (Gikeiki), The Tale of the Soga Brothers, and Record of Great Peace (Taiheiki), each with an established cast of characters that was well known to the audience. The “innovation” provided this “world” with the new and the unexpected, which could take the form of contemporary events or figures injected into the past or new and unexpected combinations of two or more existing “worlds.”
The puppet plays at this time also tended to be highly moralistic, reflecting a larger trend from the Kyōhō-Hōreki era (1716–1764). A similar tendency is apparent in the contemporary dangibon, the comic, didactic fiction that imitated the style of Buddhist sermons. A general trend was the fusion of the “Way of the warrior” (bushidō)—a samurai ethic of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and obligation—with Confucian virtues of filial piety, a wife’s fidelity to her husband, or a subject’s fidelity to his ruler. Even the social structure of the urban commoner family and business—specifically, the relationship between the employee (apprentice) and the employer—came to be governed by this samurai notion of loyalty and obligation. Of all samurai values, the one with the greatest weight was loyalty, which provided the moral foundation for the social and political order. Consequently, a number of the history plays, beginning with The Battles of Coxinga, are about loyalty to a lord, a ruler, or the imperial family, a theme explored in the context of war, struggle for succession of a prominent house (oie sōdō), and vendettas. Chūshingura, for example, describes the loyalty of the former retainers of the Ako fief to their slandered lord. The notion of loyalty, however, was taken to a new extreme in the mid-eighteenth century, with loyalty becoming tragically embodied in personal substitution (migawari), in which, for example, a retainer sacrifices his son for his lord’s son or a woman sacrifices herself for her husband.
This interest in loyalty shifted in the 1740s, from an emphasis on the ties between man and woman to the ties between parent and child. The resulting conflict, particularly in the drama by Namiki Sōsuke and the Toyotake Theater, is not primarily—as it was in Chikamatsu’s drama—between human desire (ninjō) and obligation/duty (giri) but between parental love and obligation/duty. In this dilemma, the parent’s love and concern for the child is cruelly crushed in the face of larger social responsibilities and obligations that force the parent to sacrifice the life of the child. In contrast to the passion between the sexes, which directly violated feudal ethics, close ties between parent and child were central to the Confucian ethical system, which was based on the patriarchal family and filial piety. Even so, the puppet theater of the 1740s did not focus on filial piety but on the parent’s love for the child, which conflicted with the higher Confucian virtues of loyalty and duty, which had to be observed even at the cost of the child.
Particularly important to the history plays is the fallen low-status figure. Each play is set in a historical “world” (sekai) with a cast of well-known, prominent figures. The crucial and climactic third act, however, centers on marginal low-status characters (such as Kanpei and Kumagai), who represent an “innovation.” These marginal figures, who are fallen or weak and include women, become the exemplars of virtue inspired by the samurai code of honor, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. Kanpei and Kumagai (in Chūshingura and Ichinotani, respectively) each have made serious mistakes in the past and thereby atone for them through extreme self-sacrifice. For the puppet playwrights, who were not allowed to depict contemporary events, the medieval period became a means both to uphold samurai values and to comment indirectly on contemporary society and bakufu policy.
In the mid-eighteenth century, the bunraku history play usually had five acts, ten or more separate scenes (three or four of which were climactic), thirty to forty characters, multiple protagonists, and a performance time of about nine hours. Today, a performance of the bunraku version of Chūshingura, for example, has six chanters and six shamisen players, performing in succession, to present the protagonist Yuranosuke—an undertaking that no single kabuki actor could match. In 1733, puppets with movable fingers were introduced, and in the following year the Takemoto Theater invented the three-man puppet (one at the head and right arm, one at the left arm, and one at the feet), commandeered by the famous Yoshida Bunzaburō (d. 1760), who captivated the audience by making the movements of the puppets almost identical to those of living actors.
During Chikamatsu’s time, the chanter always held the highest position, but beginning in the mid-1730s the puppeteer began taking the highest position. In the famous Chūshingura incident in 1748, Yoshida Bunzaburō, the puppeteer who was manipulating the protagonist Yuranosuke in the debut performance of Chūshingura by the Takemoto Theater, and Takemoto Konodayū (1700–1768), the chief chanter, had an argument, apparently over matters concerning the performance. The director of the Takemoto Theater, Takeda Izumo II, settled the matter in favor of Bunzaburō, who had become a superstar whom the theater could not afford to lose, and brought in a chanter from the Toyotake Theater. Konodayū moved to the Toyotake Theater and was followed there two years later by the playwright Namiki Sōsuke. Because the Chūshingura incident ended up mixing the distinctive styles of the two theaters, it is thought to foreshadow the end of the puppet theater’s golden age. The Toyotake Theater (as a theater dedicated to puppet theater) closed in 1765, and the Takemoto Theater closed in 1767/1768.
TAKEDA IZUMO, NAMIKI SŌSUKE, AND MIYOSHI SHŌRAKU
At the Takemoto Theater, Takeda Izumo, the theater director and playwright, and his troupe—which included Takeda Izumo II (Koizumo, 1691–175
6), Miyoshi Shōraku (1696?–1771?), and Namiki Sōsuke (Namiki Senryū, 1695–1751)—produced the so-called three great works of puppet theater, which were staged for a short time between 1745 and 1751 and continue to this day to be performed by both puppet theater and kabuki: Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy (Sugawara denju tenarai kagami, 1746), Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees (Yoshitsune senbonazakura, 1747), and Chūshingura: The Storehouse of Loyal Retainers (Kanadehon Chūshingura, 1748). In 1751, Namiki Sōsuke returned to the Toyotake Theater, where he wrote his final play: Chronicle of the Battle of Ichinotani (Ichinotani futaba gunki, 1751). Although some scholars consider Namiki Sōsuke to be the genius behind all these plays, others believe that the driving force was Takeda Izumo (both father and son).
CHŪSHINGURA: THE STOREHOUSE OF LOYAL RETAINERS (KANADEHON CHŪSHINGURA, 1748)
Chūshingura: The Storehouse of Loyal Retainers was first performed in Osaka as a puppet play in 1748. It was and continues to be the most popular drama in the theatrical tradition, with later versions on film and television. It quickly became a staple in the kabuki theaters in Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo, where it remains the most frequently performed work in the repertory. Chūshingura was written as a collaboration by the same three authors—Takeda Izumo II, Namiki Sōsuke, and Miyoshi Shōraku—who had composed Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy. There is some thought that it was Namiki Sōsuke who wrote act 6, which is translated here, but there is no direct evidence for this.
The attack by forty-seven former samurai of the Akō Domain on the Edo residence of Kira Yoshinaka in the Twelfth Month of 1702 to avenge the humiliation of their late lord, Asano Naganori, startled the military government and the public. More than a year and a half earlier, Asano had suddenly attacked Kira, a high bakufu official, in the palace of the fifth shōgun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (r. 1680–1709), during an important ceremony for representatives from the Kyoto Imperial Court. Although Kira was only wounded, Asano was ordered by the furious Tsunayoshi to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) immediately. The band of forty-seven thus were avenging what they saw as the wrong done to their lord, as they believed that Kira, too, should have been punished. The vendetta group went to the Asano family grave in Sengaku-ji temple to await judgment. After a period of deliberation by the government, they were condemned to commit seppuku, considered an honorable form of execution. The forty-seven loyal samurai instantly became popular heroes, but because the vendetta could also be interpreted as an affront to the bakufu, the plays based on the event were immediately banned. Soon after Tsunayoshi’s death in 1709, however, a new administration began to change those bakufu policies deemed to be unpopular and publicly restored the Asano family’s position. Then starting late in 1710, perhaps sensing a change in the official attitude toward popular tragic heroes, playwrights and fiction writers began to produce a string of plays and novels (ukiyo-zōshi) on the theme of the forty-seven rōnin but set the tale in the late-fourteenth-century world of the historical chronicle Record of Great Peace (Taiheiki), with actual or slightly altered names.
The final scenes of acts 2, 3, and 4, with the third as the most important, are considered to be the high points of the five-act history play. Chūshingura is different from other history plays of the time in having eleven acts (actually closer to scenes), but these eleven scenes can in fact be grouped into five (real) acts. Thus, the corresponding conventional high points of the play are act 4 (Lord Enya Hangan’s suicide, equivalent to the last scene of act 2), act 6 (Kanpei’s suicide, equivalent to the final scene of act 3), and act 9 (Honzō’s suicide, equivalent to the last scene of act 4). In performances today, acts 6 and 9 are considered the most difficult and are performed by only the most experienced chanters in the troupe. Although Ōishi Kuranosuke, the leader of the forty-seven conspirators, who appears in the play as Ōboshi Yuranosuke, is the focus of those interested in the factual history of the vendetta, the core climactic scene in the play, the sixth act, which is translated here, centers on the lowest figure, Hayano Kanpei, whose indiscretions are thought to be one of the reasons for his lord’s disgrace and who consequently has been kept out of the vendetta group. Hayano Kanpei’s name is taken from the historical figure Kayano Sanpei, of the Akō Domain, who committed suicide before the vendetta, but the Hayano Kanpei in the play is essentially fictional. The same is true of two other lowly figures in the sixth act: Okaru, a farmer’s daughter in the service of Lord Enya and the lover/wife of Kanpei, and her brother Teraoka Heiemon, named after the historical Terasaka Kichiemon, also of the Akō fief, who mysteriously disappeared after the vendetta attack. Significantly, the playwrights concentrated on two men, Kanpei and Heiemon, who were low foot soldiers (ashigaru) and who had to sacrifice themselves in order to regain their proper samurai status. Okaru and her two elderly parents also sacrifice themselves for the cause.
The nineteenth-century kabuki version, which is presented here, makes several changes in the original jōruri text, two of which alter the interpretation of the action. In the original jōruri, immediately after Kanpei stabs himself, he says that he intended to commit suicide if his request to join the vendetta were denied. The kabuki rendition, however, omits this line and creates the impression that Kanpei commits suicide to atone for the murder of his father-in-law, Yoichibei (Okaru’s father). Also in contrast to the jōruri text, which presents a severe view of samurai honor as an absolute ideal, the kabuki version humanizes Kanpei. In both the jōruri and kabuki versions, the irony of Kanpei’s death is that it was necessary for the restoration of his samurai position but also unnecessary, since he did not kill his father-in-law.
A review of Kanpei’s actions earlier in the play is essential to understanding act 6. In act 3 Kanpei is on duty at the palace, the only attendant for his lord, Enya Hangan, representing the historical Asano. Okaru, in service to Lady Enya (Kaoyo) and in love with Kanpei, arranges for them to meet while on duty. Enya’s attack on Kō no Moronao (representing the historical Kira) in the palace occurs while they are together. This lapse of duty is the cause of Kanpei’s disgrace and of his exclusion from the vendetta group. In act 5 Kanpei, now a hunter trying to make a living, meets Senzaki Yagorō (a member of the vendetta group) at night and hears about the plan to raise money for a memorial to Lord Enya. He promises to raise money for the cause and asks to be allowed to join the vendetta. Then Yoichibei, father of Kanpei’s wife, Okaru, returns along the same road at night from Kyoto to Yamazaki with fifty ryō in gold, half the agreed sale of Okaru to a Gion brothel for a five-year contract. Yoichibei has taken this initiative to help Kanpei raise money for his cause, though without Kanpei’s knowledge but with the consent of his own wife and daughter. He encounters the thief Sadakurō, a former Enya retainer but now a villain, who kills Yoichibei and steals the money. A wild boar runs near by, and two shots fire out, instantly killing Sadakurō. Kanpei runs up, thinking that he has killed the boar, discovers in the dark that it is a man, finds the money, decides to accept it as a gift from heaven, and rushes off with the money to give it to Yagorō. Act 6 begins the next morning.1
CHARACTERS
HAYANO KANPEI, a former retainer of Enya Hangan, whose lapse on duty is considered a cause of his lord’s tragedy; married to Okaru
YOICHIBEI, a poor farmer and father of Okaru
OKARU, wife of Kanpei and formerly in service to Lord Enya’s wife, Kaoyo
OKAYA,2 mother of Okaru
OSAI, female owner of the Ichimonjiya brothel in Kyoto (originally cast as Saibei, a male owner)
GENROKU,3 agent for the Ichimonjiya brothel
YAHACHI, ROKU, KAKUHEI, local hunters
SENZAKI YAGORŌ, a former retainer of Enya Hangan and one of the vendetta group
HARA GŌEMON, a former retainer of Enya Hangan and one of the vendetta group
Act 6, Kanpei’s Suicide
The setting is a poor farmer’s house in Yamazaki between Osaka and Kyoto. After the suicide of Lord Enya Hangan and the dissolution of the Enya fief Kanpei has become a rō
nin and taken refuge in the house of his wife Okaru’s parents. The chanter, in full view and accompanied by a shamisen player, sings in bunraku musical style.
CHANTER (singing):
The Misaki dance in full swing,
your cue, old man,
take Grandma’s hand.
The harvest song accompanies the farmers as they cut barley in Yamazaki, a hilly area, where the poor farmer Yoichibei lives in a weathered hut, now the hideaway of Hayano Kanpei, who has lost his position as a samurai. Kanpei’s wife sits alone, facing a mirror, and combs her beautiful hair, disheveled by sleep—a beauty far too precious for rustic life.4 Her mother, now old and needing a stick to walk, returns along a path through the fields.
OKAYA: My dear daughter, you’ve done up your hair? It looks beautiful! Everywhere you turn, people are busy harvesting the summer barley. All young folk are singing, “Your cue, old man, take Grandma’s hand.” Every time I hear it, I worry about father’s being late. I went to the edge of the village, but there’s no sign of him, no word at all.
OKARU: That’s not good. What could be keeping him? Shall I run out and have a look?
OKAYA: No, no. A young woman can’t just wander about the village. And you of all people, you hated to walk in the countryside even as a child. That’s why we sent you into Lord Enya’s service. But it seems that after all that, you’re fated to be tied forever to the tall wild grass of the countryside. But you don’t seem to mind—returning here with Kanpei.
OKARU: What are you talking about, mother? That’s only natural. As long as I’m with the man I love, how can I complain, no matter how rustic the place or how hard the life? The Bon Festival will be here soon. Just as the song says, “Your cue, old man, take Grandma’s hand.” I want to go with Kanpei to the festival. You must still remember what it was like to be young.
Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900 Page 57
