 |
| Sakata Tōjūrō. (Photo: Shinoyama Kishin.) |
The cover for the February (#2) 2021 issue of ENGEKIKAI, the kabuki magazine of record, shows the late, great Kamigata (Osaka/Kyoto) actor, Sakata Tōjūrō IV, who died last year at 89. As the headline on the lower right demonstrates, the issue has a large, lavishly illustrated section celebrating and describing his brilliant career as a specialist in the wagoto style of gentle, young men, and charming, beautiful young women, as seen in the photo of him as Ohatsu, the Tenmanya courtesan in Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s classic double suicide play, Sonezaki Shinjū (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki).
Other
materials headlined on the cover (the issue contains even more)
are reviews of the January productions at the Minami-za, Kabuki-za, Kokuritsu Gekijō,
and elsewhere; a piece on the Hakata-za theatre; the latest in actor Matsumoto
Kōshirō’s series, “Kōshirō’s Thousand and One Nights”; and a report on the debut of
child actor Ogawa Taisei, son of actor Nakamura Baishi.
Finally, there’s a large section devoted to an overview of the world of kabuki in 2020, subtitled “Looking Back on an Unprecedented Year.”
No comments:
Post a Comment