ENGEKIKAI (December 2020, #12): COVER AND CONTENTS

Matsumoto Hakuō II. (Photo: Shinoyama Kishin.)

The cover for the December issue of ENGEKIKAI, the kabuki magazine of record, shows Matsumoto Hakuō II as the sumo wrestler Chōgorō in the “Sumō Scene” of Futatsu Chōchō Kuruwa Niki (Chōgorō and Chōkichi: Diary of Two Butterflies in the Pleasure Quarters) as produced at the Kabuki-za last October. This is the same character seen on the cover of the November 2020 issue, which I recently posted, but from another scene. As per the cover headlines, the issue again leads with a section on how several actors feel about performing at this time, the actors covered here being Nakamura Kaishun, Nakamura Karoku, and Nakamura Shidō. There is a new installment of Matsumoto Kōshirō X’s long-running series, “Kōshirō’s Thousand and One Nights,” “Trends in September-October Theatre,” reviews of October’s kabuki, a reprinting of archival materials from 1946 about touring Japan with kabuki, right after the war, and a lengthy obituary about the late Onoe Kikujūrō IV, who died last September at 88.