This play was first performed as a puppet play in 1751 in Osaka , and that was written by Miyoshi Shoraku and Yoshida Kanji. It has 13-act. Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote ‘Tanba Yosaku Matsuyo no Komurobushi’ in 1708, and they rewrote it into this play. This play was performed as a kabuki play in the same year 1751, and it made a big hit. Act-10 that was well known as ‘Shigenoi Kowakare / Shigenoi leaves from her son’ was performed this time. This act is popular and has been performed alone until today.

Miyoshi Shoraku and Yoshida Kanji set the family feud of the lord Yuruki’s family as the vertical axis of this drama, and they succeeded in expressing the depth of this play, so watching act-10 only isn’t enough to know this dramatic story. Especially, act-10 doesn’t show Yosaku, who was Shigenoi’s husband and Sankichi’s father. If every act was shown, we could know detail of this drama and the characters’ relationship correctly. I think that it is very sorry that I watched act-10 only.

However, this act showed a strict rule of the samurai society. Especially in-house love was forbidden strictly at that time. That rule made Shigenoi’s father commit ritual suicide, and Yosaku was banished. Shigenoi lost her father and husband, and she had to leave from her son. Every samurai had to have elements both of a warrior and a civil servant. So their rule became sometimes too strict, and it made many tragedies like this.

Actually, act-10 doesn’t have special drama, because that just shows that Shigenoi and her son meet again unfortunately. So I don’t have anything to write especially this month. However, this play had another element to feel interesting.

Kabuki-za Theater presented three plays as the night program, ‘Koi-Nyobo Somewake Taduna / this play’, ’Meoto Dojo-ji’and ‘Tsutamomiji Utsunoya Toge’. Shikan played as Shigenoi this time, and he is father of Hashinosuke who played as a lady-in-waiting Wakana, and Hashinosuke’s eldest son Kunio 8 years old played as Sankichi. Hashinosuke has an elder brother Fukusuke, and Fukusuke’s daughter Kana 8 years old played as Princess Shirabe. Kunio and Kana performed Sankichi and Princess Shirabe very well this time, and it was supported by their family.

Fukusuke has a son Kotaro 10 years old, and Hashinosuke has a second son Muneo 6 years old, they both appeared on the stage in the daytime program. And Hashinosuke’s third son Yoshio 2 years old was on his first appearance this time. At the ‘Meoto Dojo-ji’, Yoshio was introduced by his grandfather, his father and his uncle. Audiences were delighted of his debut as a kabuki actor very much, and expected the Nakamura family’s future. So cute!

Well, all kabuki actors are male as you know, but Kana is a little girl 8 years old. She doesn’t have menstruation yet, so she can appear on the kabuki stage. In Japan , blood has been thought dirty, and that is the reason that women can’t stand on the ring of Sumo. It is unreasonable and impolite for women. After Kana grow up enough, she won’t be able to stand on the kabuki stage. However, I have never heard that an old actress whose menstruation stopped appeared on the kabuki stage.

After this play finished, I was eating ‘Tokyo superfine quality bean-jam bun \180’. Then, I heard someone’s voice that I knew, and I found that it was an actress Mita Hiroko’s voice. She is a wife of Hashinosuke, and she had greeted an old woman who sat on the seat behind me. I didn’t know that old woman, but perhaps she would have been a wife of a famous person.

Although it became the end of this essay, I should write that I was glad that Nakamura Shinobu had appeared as a lady-in-waiting on the stage, because I hadn’t seen her for long time. (2004,9,4)