ENGEKIKAI (#9) September 2019: Cover and Contents (erroneous listing)

Apologies. I posted this before realizing I'd already described the #9 September 2019 cover and contents of ENGEKIKAI, although in slightly different words. So it's not belated; just more or less a repeat of what I already posted. I'm leaving it up for the time being but will eventually take it down.

Kabuki Woogie is devoted to a variety of kabuki-related subjects. It began with a series of essays, including photos and videos, of a research trip to Japan in 2010, subsequently added my 25-chapter history of the first Kabuki-za, and then began a series on Japanese books about kabuki from my collection. It also posts the monthly covers of Engekikai, the kabuki magazine of record. When possible, it will offer occasional essays by guest contributors based on papers they delivered at conferences and symposiums. One can poke around in its archives to find all of these past posts.

This issue, which arrived late, was not previously recorded in Kabuki Woogie. It fills in what was, until now, a gap in the chronological entries for ENGEKIKAI covers of the recent past.

The cover of ENGEKIKAI, the kabuki magazine of record, for September 2019 shows Ichikawa Ebizō in the role of the medicine seller in UIRŌ-URI, one of the plays in the Ichikawa Danjūrō family line’s Kabuki Jūhachiban (The Kabuki Eighteen) collection. The issue’s chief section, headlined at the upper left, includes illustrated essays about “The Young Warriors of Reiwa,” meaning the boy actors of the new Reiwa era who are being groomed for stardom. These are listed as Ichikawa Danko, Ichikawa Somegorō, Onoe Sakon, Ōtani Tatsuo, and Ichikawa Sakon. Contents listed along the bottom include an interview with Nakamura Shichinosuke, another with Onoe Ukon, a piece about Sawamura Kunio and the Superkabuki production this past August at Kyoto’s Minami-za in honor of its reopening following renovation, reviews of October’s kabuki productions, the latest entry in Matsumoto Kōshirō’s monthly “Kōshirō’s 1,001 Nights” series, and, most interestingly, a section of archival photos of ghost play (kaidan kyōgen) productions.

This issue celebrates the 12^th anniversary of ENGEKIKAI’s revising its format. Accordingly, the cover announces that the magazine is providing the gift of an actor-signed hand towel (tenugui), although I don’t ever seem to have received mine.

Ichikawa Ebizō as the medicine seller in UIRŌ-URI. Photo: Sasayama Kishin.