Kenuki, which means tweezers, was written by Yashuda Abun and the others, premiered in 1742 as a part of “Narukami Fudo Kita Yamazakura.” This is one of the Selection of 18 Grand Kabuki Plays which Ichikawa Danjuro 7th chose as representative plays of Ichikawa family in 1832. In 1963, Danjuro 11th performed it with new production, and it was inherited by Danjuro 12th. It is a simple drama like the following.

In the Yozei emperor’s era (reign 876-884), peasantry were suffering because the drought continued. So the Imperial Court decided to pray for rain. The lord Ono Harumichi inherited a strip of paper as a family treasure that had a legend that was effective to pray for rain, but it was lost then.

The lord Harumichi has children Harukaze and Nishiki-no-mae. Nishiki-no-mae and the lord Bunya Toyohide were engaged, but their marriage was postponed because of Nishiki-no-mae’s strange illness. Her hair stands on end. Kumedera Danjo who is a retainer of the lord Bunya Toyohide visits to Oda’s mansion to see Nishiki-no-mae who is sick in bed. While he was waiting alone to see Nishiki-no-mae, he pulled a beard with tweezers. As Danjo puts the tweezers on the floor, he watches the tweezers move around freely, reasons that magnet was hidden anywhere. Danjo takes a hair ornament from Nishiki-no-mae’s head, and her hair stops standing. The hair ornament was made by iron.

Harukaze had a mistress Koiso, and she left from the mansion in order to bear a child of Harukaze at her home. However, Koiso was murdered, and the murderer stole a strip of paper that she kept then. The murderer visited to the mansion as Koiso’s elder brother Ohara Manbei in order to blackmail. Danjo kills him because he met a real Manbei before, and heard what happened on Koiso. Danjo takes a stolen strip of paper from the dead body. 

Danjo pokes ceiling with a spear, and a ruffian who holds a big magnet falls down from ceiling. Then, a chief retainer Genba killed the ruffian in order to avoid his confession about his wirepuller, because it was Genba himself. The lord Harumichi gave a sword to Danjo as gratitude. But Danjo slashed Genba suddenly and he died. The lord Bunya Toyohide suspected that Genba plotted to take over the Ono clan, so he sent Danjo to Harumichi’s mansion in order to solve every problem that happened there. And Danjo did it well.

Although some persons are killed, ‘Kenuki’ is a comedy essentially. When Danjo was waiting to see Nishiki-no-mae, he tried to court a cute page who brought a smoking tool, and just after it he tried the same thing to a lady-in-waiting who brought a tea. At the old era in Japan, bushi / samurai had the strict moral, but the other side people were very free sexually. But it wasn’t true to say that Danjo was a homosexual. Danjo would like to make a sexual relationship regardless of sex, and he didn’t seem fidelity. These scenes were just funny. 

Praying for rain was one of the most important rituals in old Japan. When the drought continued, a strip of paper that was written Ono-no Komachi’s poem, tanka, was floated on the pond of Shinsenen, and then it began to rain. Shinsenen is a beautiful garden that was built by emperor Kanmu in 794 in Kyoto. The poem is under this. 

Kotowariya Hinomotonaraba Terimoseme Saritotehamata Amagasitatoha

It means the following; it is reasonable that sun shines because Japan is the land under the sun, however isn’t it the same as the land under the heaven / rain? (So please let it rain.) In Japanese, heaven and rain are the same pronunciations, ‘ame.’ Although it was one of the legends about Ono-no Komachi, it was true that she made that poem. In this play, the lord Ono Harumichi was set up as posterity of Ono-no Komachi, so it was a reasonable episode that her strip of paper was a family treasure of the Ono clan.

This play premiered in 1742, and magnet started to be known by people as a new science in Japan at that time, so playwrights adopted it in their play as a timely topic. There weren’t news paper, magazines, or TV then, so kabuki had a role to notify current topics to people like that. Audiences must have enjoyed the magnet’s trick. At the scene, tweezers is changed to a big one and it floats through the air moving around freely like dancing.

“Narukami Fudo Kita Yamazakura” has five acts, and “Kenuki” is its third act. Prince Hayakumo-no-ohji, a half-brother of emperor Yozei, is the plotter through this play. In the fourth act “Narukami,” although a prayer, Narukami imprisoned the Dragon God in the waterfall because Hayakumo-no-ohji egged, it became free and it started raining. In the fifth act “Fudo”, the God of Fire killed Hayakawa-no-ohji and Narukami. Then, people regained peace again. Its every act is shown separately now. Although every act is enjoyable itself, it is sorry that we can’t see all this play as one dramatic stage play. (2005,4,2)