Kabuki Woogie began in 2011 as a way to record a research
trip to Japan I took on a Mellon Fellowship a year earlier. My day-to
day-experiences on that trip, including videos and photos, are archived at the
beginning of the blog. Over the past few years, Kabuki Woogie provided regular entries
on the history of the first Kabuki-za, Japan’s leading kabuki playhouse,
founded in 1889, and still on the same site after four additional incarnations.
The series, which offered 24 chapters, ended recently with a chapter on 1911,
when the theatre underwent significant renovation, ending its first
incarnation.
With the current entry, I will begin to post images of the
cover of each month’s issue of the long-running kabuki magazine, Engekikai (Theatre World), which I’ve provided
on Facebook for a number of years. I will also post any other items of kabuki
interest as they become available, including my own writings. All previous entries
remain intact and can be found by using the search box.
The cover for November (#11), 2018, shows Nakamura Kichiemon II as
Shunkan, the exiled priest, in Heike
Nyogo no Shima (The Heike and the Island of Women), a.k.a. Shunkan, as performed at the Kabuki-za,
October 2018. The issue’s main subject is a section on Japan’s foremost
repository of kabuki research materials, the Engeki Hakubutsukan, at Waseda
University. The Enpaku, as it’s commonly called, is celebrating its 90th anniversary.
Actor Nakamura Tōzō recalls his days at Waseda, and actor Onoe Ukon talks about
visiting the library/museum. The issue also contains interviews with kabuki
stars Onoe Kikugorō and Kataoka Nizaemon, the latter regarding his performance as
Sukeroku in Sukeroku Kuruwa Hatsu Zakura (Sukeroku
and the First Cherry Blossoms in the Pleasure Quarters). There’s also a piece
about female-role specialist Nakamura Fukusuke’s return to the stage after a
long illness, an article about several young actors and their “study groups”: Nakamura
Kashō and Nakamura Tanenosuke, and their Sōchōkai; Onoe Ukon and his Tōgi no
Kai; and Nakamura Takanosuke and his Tobu no Kai. The issue also contains the
latest monthly contribution to Matsumoto Kōshirō’s series, “Kōshirō’s Thousand
and One Nights.”
