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CHAPTER 4

Kansei Kabuki

The Kansei Kabuki period also includes the three eras prior to Kansei (1789-1800)—that is, Meiwa (1764-71), An'ei (1772-80), and Temmei (1781-88).

Kamigata was rapidly losing its position as the vital center of all the arts. It was only natural that cultural and political activities should be combined in the eastern city of Edo, where the shōgunate had established its headquarters. Influences that had formerly flowed in all directions from the capital now stemmed from Edo, where the most energetic people of the fast-growing metropolis, known as Edokko—offspring or children of Edo—soon formulated a typical culture that left a vivid imprint on the whole of Japanese life as the Edokko spirit.

Along with the rest of the arts, the pivotal center of Kabuki moved to Edo, where new playwrights came to the fore to vie in craftsmanship with their Kamigata counterparts on an equal level. Both jidai-mono and sewa-mono were in demand. Dramas in the latter genre by two of the more prominent writers, Sakurada Jisuke I and Namiki Gohei, are still being produced regularly, so much are they loved. Many of the plays of this period were based on stories of the Yoshiwara, after that former "field of reeds" had become the official gay quarters of the now teeming city of Edo. Today those plays are all that remain to give modern man a picture of the heartbreak and the violence that went with the gaiety of Yoshiwara, which had been taken as a matter of course for over three centuries.

The use of appropriate ōdōgu (o, big; dōgu, tool, instrument, material—in this case scenery) for Kabuki became extremely important about this time, and the Kansei period saw its rapid development on the stages of both eastern and western Japan under the inspired guidance of Hasegawa Kambei I, the first of a long line of outstanding stage designers. It is perhaps because of this new and colorful innovation that in Edo the performances of Nakamura Nakazō I, Ichikawa Danjūrō V, Ichikawa Danzō IV, Iwai Hanshirō IV, and Nakamura Utaemon I so brilliantly outshone those of their forebears; it is certain that the old western capital found in Arashi Sangorō II and Arashi Hinasuke II more charm, more grace, more artfulness than could be hoped for in their predecessors who performed in the dry riverbed.

Costume regulations during Kansei brought upon the scene Matsudaira Sadanobu, a rōjū—that is, an official of the highest rank—of the shōgunate government. Matsudaira, in a new effort to stifle any semblance of luxury among the populace, was adamant in proscribing every extravagance. He was instrumental in issuing new restrictions banning the use of luxurious clothing by all classes, but especially by Kabuki actors, who were of no accepted class and were held in great contempt socially. The four classes of approved society were, in order of precedence, the samurai, the farmers, the artisans (including carpenters, potters, utensil makers, and the like), and merchants.

The inability of officials to enforce the bans led to repeated re-enactment of regulations and eventually to the first ishō-kembun, an official examination of all Kabuki costumes which operated in the following manner.

At the beginning of each new program, the government dispatched an officer to a designated place in the theater where the costumer or the theater manager would produce for shita-kembun (preliminary inspection) all costumes to be used in a new production. The officer determined which costumes and materials were admissible. Later, higher government officials attended the opening performances armed with the list of approved costumes. During the program, they verified that more luxurious costumes had not been substituted. It is difficult to imagine the possibility of altering or forging the lists, so rigid was the inspection procedure.

The regular inspectors were two yoriki (high-ranking police officers) and two dōshin (ordinary policemen) from the two police headquarters of south and north Edo; two regular nanushi (ward bosses) from the districts in which the theaters were located; and two other nanushi from a different ward who alternately acted as inspectors each month.

If these inspections had been carried out in the spirit in which they were instituted, rather than according to the exact letter of the law, the Kabuki could, well have closed down, for the costuming would have been so unimaginative and lacking in variety that the plays would have lost their appeal. However, the Kabuki managements, forced to extremes in order to survive, looked for and cleverly found loopholes in the regulations. Since satin cloth was specifically prohibited, other materials were used and these were exquisitely hand-embroidered in picturesque designs—all within the law, since the present bans made no mention of embroidery. Theater management could in this way face opening-day inspection with easy consciences, and inspecting officials who arrived with their families to attend the Kabuki could, without so much as a misgiving, blissfully enjoy the performances, their responsibilities at an end. It was not theirs to question the unparalleled richness and splendor of the stage wardrobe so long as none of it was specifically outlawed.

In 1789, the use of fabrics was limited for the common man as well as for the actor. All that was permitted was the use of hemp cloth and two types of rough plain silk: tsumugi, closely woven from heavy yarn of the cocoon of double silkworms (normally the cocoon is filled with only one worm), or mawata, spun from the heavy thread from imperfect filament or silk waste taken from the contents of a cocoon broken through by a butterfly before the cocoon has been heated.

On frequent occasions, basically simple material was artfully disguised and made into magnificent apparel, thus circumventing all government edicts. The general trend to camouflage was clearly defined as early as 1782, when the Ichimura-za produced the play Ise Heiski Eiga no Koyomi (The Calendar Record of the Prosperity of the Heike of Ise) with Nakamura Nakazō I in the role of Endō Musha. Nakazō's costume was made from striped cotton cloth of black santome or tōzan over which white Kaga-silk patterns were appliqued and outlined with gold paper thread.

These fabrics are of sufficient interest to deserve a few words of description. Santome took its name from St. Thomas, or St. Tome, the then Indian port located on the western coast, from which textiles were exported. Santome was a cotton cloth patterned with stripes. To differentiate between the imported santome and the imitation made in Japan during the Edo period, the imported cloth was called tō-santome, the tō meaning Chinese or foreign. For convenience, the name was abbreviated to tōzan. Kaga silk, used for the appliquéd patterns in Nakazō's costume, derived its name from the Japanese province of Kaga, which in the old days produced a fine grade of silk.

Since the government officials knew little about materials, other than the textiles used in their own sphere of life, the Kabuki costumer was able to use rare imported (therefore expensive) cottons secured from Dutch and Chinese ships still plying between Japan and the rest of the world.

Danjūrō V, acting the role of Kudō Suketsune in Kotobuki Soga no Taimen (The Confrontation of the Soga Brothers), wore a katsura with a partially grown out sakayaki (shaven part of head) made of dyed cotton instead of the forbidden rasha, a feltlike material made of wool, or of velvet, which was also proscribed. When hair is used for this purpose, bear fur is utilized. The katsura is worn by the daimyō class in jidai-mono only.

No longer were the traditional layers of kimono used in Kabuki, but an illusion of them remained in the free display of many edges sewn together on the underneath side of the outer garment so as to appear as multitudinous collars, sleeves, and skirts, a procedure which may have been suggested from the clothing of either the ningyō-shibai puppets or ordinary dolls.

During March 1789, Segawa Kikunojō III was intercepted by the police officials when he was walking home from the theater. He was wearing an elaborate silk kimono, and despite his great popularity he was deprived of the garment and was fined. Two years later, the Nakamura-za presented Sukeroku Yukari no Edo-Zakura with the major roles taken by Ichikawa Yaozo II as Sukeroku, Iwai Hanshirō IV, major onnagata of the period, as Agemaki, and Onoe Matsusuke I as the evil Ikyū. All costumes in this production were confiscated because luxurious materials had been employed in their making. Today, with no bans to denude it of its brilliant trappings, Sukeroku is known especially for its elaborately ornate costumes.

No limitation was made on Nō costumes, for the Nō theater was the chosen entertainment of the aristocratic classes, and the most magnificent textiles in Japan have always been utilized to dress Nō actors. Practically no dyed materials, even today, are used to achieve an effect for costumes of the principals. Usually the first quality of silks is employed—silks heavily embroidered in a galaxy of patterns, intricately woven designs in rich brocaded cloth, or cloth imprinted in gold leaf. Only for roles representing lower-class persons do we find hemp cloth in dyed patterns, but it must not be confused with the coarse hemp known to the Western world. It is a kind of ramie, fine and similar to the softest of Irish linen.

One exception other than Nō was made. Costumes used by Kabuki actresses, who performed only at the courts of the shōgun and the daimyō, had no restrictions on material. The restrained elegance of some of the delicate, somber-hued, but beautifully embroidered kimono of these actresses has been preserved. These kimono may be seen at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park.

On the whole, the prohibition regarding luxury in dress was a blessing in no disguise to the theater. The costumes being extremely costly, the prospect of their confiscation made it imperative that the management devise new color combinations and patterns with authorized textiles which could pass the wary eyes of the government officials, yet please the public's demands for elaborate display. The ingenuity thus developed may have been worth the unhappy experiences of the early years.

Kabuki faced another danger in survival. It encountered animosity from another outside source—the conflict between the rapidly growing class of poor samurai and the well-to-do chōnin (merchants). The indigent samurai were jealous of the merchants, who could afford regularly to attend the Kabuki and to frequent the Yoshiwara at will—the very activities so appealing to the samurai, but too expensive for their participation.

But times were indeed changing. The shōgunate tried vainly to maintain its non-warring military men in the manner to which their status had accustomed them by minimizing the expenditures of other classes. The restrictive laws against lavish display were ignored one by one. It was to the chōnin that the samurai were forced to go for monetary help, and in many instances employment, so that they could not afford to oppose the merchants openly.