ENGEKIKAI #9 (September 2021): COVER AND CONTENTS

 

Ichikawa Ebizo as Hayakumo in Narukami Fudo Kitayama Zakura. Photo: Shinoyama Kishin.)

The September and October 2021 issues of Engekikai, the kabuki magazine of record, have finally arrived. Surface shipping from Japan takes about two months these days. Thank you, Prof. Kei Hibino, for forwarding these!

We’ll start with the September issue, whose brilliant cover shows Ichikawa Ebizō as Prince Hayakumo, the nobleman villain, in the full-length (tōshi kyōgen) production of Narukami Fudō Kitayama Zakura at the Kabuki-za in July.

The issue’s main feature is an illustrated tour through kabuki plays showing travel to various places in Japan. If you lived in the Edo period, and were restricted from traveling because of all the hardships involved (including having to walk, no matter how far, unless you could afford to be carried in an uncomfortable palanquin), kabuki could take you there with plays set all around the country, from the seashores to the mountains, and to all the famous temples, shrines, and castles that were principal destinations.

The issue also has an interview with star Matsumoto Kōshirō X re: his then upcoming August production, and an interview with young actor Nakamura Tsurumatsu. There’s also a conversation with Ichikawa Enya about his performance in the Broadway musical Anything Goes at Tokyo’s Meiji-za in August.

The last item mentioned on the cover is of a production titled Ibuki,. Assuming this means something like “a breath of fresh air” (it’s written in syllabic script rather than kanji), the added comma at the end was intended to suggest that it’s meant to be continued, with new iterations. That’s because the show was presented by top star Ichikawa Ebizō on behalf of young actors whose opportunities for stage experience was being constrained by the decrease of productions during the pandemic. Ibuki, was given at Kyoto’s Minami-za in seven performances over four days in June 2021, and was a two-part program including two scenes from the classic history play Imoseyama Onna Teikin and a well-known dance play, Noriaibune Ehō Manzai.  

Every issue of the magazine contains a photo essay on an interesting kabuki-related artifact. Below is the actual costume custom-built for Ichikawa Sadanji II, the first kabuki actor to visit the West, where he went to study foreign theatre in 1904. It was created in Rome, in preparation for when he'd return to Japan and play Marc Antony in Julius Caesar, at a time when Shakespeare was beginning to make an impression on Japanese theatre.