ENGEKIKAI #8 (August 2021): COVER AND CONTENTS

Ichikawa Ennosuke IV as Priest Nichiren. Photo: Shinoyama Kishin.

The August issue of ENGEKIKAI, kabuki’s monthly magazine of record, features a cover photo of Ichikawa Ennosuke IV as the priest Renchō (later Nichiren) in the new play Nichiren—Ai wo Shiru Hito (Nichiren—A Priest Who Knows Love). It was produced on part 3 of the June 2021 Kabuki-za program, celebrating the 800^th birthday of Nichiren, one of Japanese Buddhism’s most important figures. The Kabuki-za’s online synopsis says:

This play is set in the 13th century, a time of great turbulence caused by raging wars, a series of natural disasters, starvation and epidemics. In the depths of night on Mount Hiei, ascetic monks gather in front of the main temple hall. Inside, Renchō has remained confined for ten days without eating or drinking, and now his voice chanting the sutras can no longer be heard. In contrast to the other monks who are repulsed by Renchō’s uncompromising attitude, Jōben is moved by Renchō’s passion and is now concerned about him. Jōben breaks down the door to enter the hall. Please look forward to the kabuki production commemorating the 800th anniversary of Saint Nichiren’s birth. It will shine with the light of hope and bring the power of his thoughts into your hearts.

The cover provides a partial list of the issue’s contents, which offers numerous photos and reviews of this past June's productions. Most prominent of the items on the cover is a section devoted to the late Osaka-based kabuki actor, Kataoka Hidetarō, a Living National Treasure, who died this year at 79. Other features include interviews with actors Kataoka Nizaemon, Ichikawa Chūsha, and pieces about actors Nakamura Tanenosuke and Ichikawa Emisaburō. Finally, the issue contains the latest in the series by star Matsumoto Kōshirō, “Kōshirō’s Thousand and One Nights.” 

ENGEKIKAI #7 (July 2021): COVER AND CONTENTS

 

Onoe Shōroku II as the spirit of the Earth Spider in Tsuchigumo. (Photo: Shinoyama Kishin.)

The cover for the July 2021 (#7) issue of Engekikai, the monthly kabuki magazine of record, shows Onoe Shōroku II in the role of the monstrous Earth Spider in Tsuchigumo, as performed at the Kabuki-za in May of this year. The main section of the issue, as noted on the cover at the right, is a collection of essays and exquisite photos devoted to “The World of Sakura-hime Kuruwa Bunshō,” a major early 19^th-century drama of sex and violence by Tsuruya Nanboku IV, the greatest playwright of his generation. You can see an abridged version of the recent Kabuki-za production here.

Among featured articles on the cover, representing only a partial list of the issue’s contents, is one about a filmed performance (in the Cinema Kabuki series) of Mishima Yukio’s  “Iwashi Uri Koi no Hikiami,” one of the best modern kabuki plays, starring the great female-role specialist (onnagata) Bandō Tamasaburō V.

Another beautifully illustrated piece focuses on two child actors, Onoe Ushinosuke and Bandō Kamesaburō, and their performance in Kagami Jishi. Also present is another in the long-running series by actor Matsumoto Kōshirō, “Kōshirō’s One Thousand and One Nights.” Sad news for fans of bunraku awaits them in the essay devoted to the retirement at 88 of the great puppeteer, Yoshida Minosuke III, whose handsome face is so evident in thousands of production photographs taken during his lengthy career. 

Finally, there’s an essay on the revision by one of today’s top stars, Nakamura Kichiemon II, of a 19^th-century bunraku play, “Hachijin Shugo no Honjō,” later adapted for kabuki, which Kichiemon starred in at the Kabuki-za in May. Kichiemon’s interest was stirred by the character of Katō Kiyomasa, a famous samurai hero who had appeared in several kabuki plays and was one of the roles most closely associated with his predecessor, Kichiemon I. For his writing credit, Kichiemon II used the pen name, Matsu Kanshi. The first Kanshi was an Edo-period bunraku playwright, but Kichiemon, while using the name, doesn’t designate himself as the second in the line.

ENGEKIKAI #5 (May 2021): COVER AND CONTENTS

Note: it has come to my belated attention that the last posting in this series was listed as May (#5) 2021. However, that was my careless mistake, as it should have said June (#6) 2021, while the actual May issue is described below. The June issue has been corrected as well.

Kataoka Nizaemon XV as Kumagai Naojirō. (Photo: Shinoyama Kishin,)

The cover for the May (#5) 2021 issue of ENGEKIKAI, the kabuki magazine of record, shows Kataoka Nizaemon XV as Kumagai Naojirō in Kumagai Jinya, as performed in March 2021 at Tokyo’s Kabuki-za. The selective list of contents headlined on the cover is led by the titles on the lower left, announcing a series of exquisitely illustrated sections about “The Children of Kabuki.” As indicated by the four section titles shown, there are presentations about “Twelve Selected Plays” featuring children’s roles, “Child Actors Currently Active,” “Memories of Productions,” and “Famous Actor When They Played Children’s Roles.”

On the lower right, the titles point to a discussion between father and son stars Matsumoto Hakuō II and Matsumoto Kōshirō X regarding their then upcoming April production, and reviews of March productions at several theatres.

ENGEKIKAI #6 (June 2021): COVER AND CONTENTS

 

Matsumoto Hakuō II as Benkei in Kanjinchō. (Photo: Shinoyama Kishin.

The June 2021 cover of Engekikai, the kabuki magazine of record, shows the great Matsumoto Hakuō (formerly Matsumoto Kōshirō IX), who once played the lead in Man of La Mancha on Broadway, as Benkei, the heroic warrior-priest, in Kanjinchō, as performed in April at the Kabuki-za. The lead segment, listed at the upper right, is called “Masculine Dignity,” and consists of a series of essays on the most famous pairings of characters who are well-matched opponents in kabuki classics, something like the pairing, for example, of Othello and Iago. They include Benkei and Togashi, Nagoya Sanza and Fuwa Banzaemon, and so on.

The issue also contains an article on the veteran star Onoe Kikugorō VII and his then forthcoming May appearance at the Kabuki-za. At the bottom right is a conversation with four young stars, Nakamura Kankurō, Nakamura Shichinosuke, Onoe Matsuya, and Nakamura Chōzaburō, who were appearing at Shibuya’s Cocoon Kabuki. Other materials found in the issue, which includes lots more, include the latest in the series “Kōshirō’s Thousand and One Nights,” a piece on a kabuki actor named Nakamura Kyōzō, who recently toured abroad with lecture-demonstrations of his art, and a piece on the dark nineteenth-century classic, Sakura-Hime Azuma no Bunshō.

An unusual item in the issue is a color photo of an exquisite model of the original Teikoku Gekijō (Imperial Theatre), the revolutionary theatre, built in 1911, that was Japan's first fully Western playhouse. It still stands on the same spot, near the Imperial Palace, albeit in a much altered form. Part of the original architect's blueprint accompanies the photo.

ENGEKIKAI #4 (April 2021): COVER AND CONTENTS

 

Renjishi (left); Sodehagi Saimon (right). Photo: Shinoyama Kishin.

The cover for the April (#4) 2021 issue of ENGEKIKAI, the kabuki magazine of record, is split into two images. The issue is largely concerned with kabuki production in February 2021. The picture on the upper left is of Renjishi (Two Lions), the spirit of the father lion portrayed by Nakamura Kankurō VI, the spirit of the child lion by Kankurō’s son, Nakamura Kantarō III. The picture at the lower right  shows Ōshū Adachigara (a place name), also known as Sodehagi Saimon (Sodehagi’s Lament). Kankurō’s brother, Nakamura Shichinosuke II, is the blind Sodehagi, and his nephew (Kankurō’s other son and Kantarō’s brother), Nakamura Chōzaburō II, is her daughter, Okimi. Tokyo’s Kabuki-za has been producing three bills a day lately, and these plays were on the third part of February’s program.

The principal focus of the issue is, as the lower left headline asserts, the classic play Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura (Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees), a mid-eighteenth-century work originally written for the bunraku puppet theatre, soon adapted for kabuki, and now one of the so-called three masterpieces of bunraku-kabuki (all by the same playwrights), the other two being Kanadehon Chūshingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers) and Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami (Sugawara’s Secrets of Calligraphy). The issue contains multiple, beautifully illustrated views of the play’s production history and values, supplemented by a narrative about the play by perhaps its foremost modern performer, Ichikawa En’o II (formerly Ennosuke III).

Also in the issue, among other features, are discussions with actors Nakamura Kazutarō, Onoe Ukon, Nakamura Yonekichi, and Nakamura Hashinosuke about their then upcoming March program at Kyoto’s Minami-za, focused on these rising “young stars” (hanagata). Finally, the issue includes the latest in actor Matsumoto Kōshirō’s long-running series, “Kōshirō’s Thousand and One Nights.”

 

ENGEKIKAI #3 (MARCH 2021): COVER AND CONTENTS

 

Onoe Matsuya as Soga Gorō. (Photo: Shinoyama Kishin.) 

The cover for the March (#3) 2021 issue of ENGEKIKAI, the kabuki magazine of record, shows Onoe Matsuya as Soga Gorō in the celebratory Meiji-period dance KOTOBUKI TE HANAGATA HASHIRA DATE. The word hashiradate refers to the old custom of performing a ceremony to celebrate the first raising of a pillar during the construction of a new home. It was performed at Tokyo’s Kabuki-za in February. Soga Gorō is a historically-based hero who has attained mythical power in Japanese history—and especially in kabuki—because of a famous vendetta he and his brother Jūrō carried out in the twelfth century.

The issue’s leading contents (there are others), listed on the cover, are dominated by the headline at the upper left, meaning the First Show of the Year. This refers to a gorgeous section of color photos of all the major plays given in February at the Kabuki-za, the National Theatre (Kokuritsu Gekijō), the Shinbashi Enbujō, and Osaka’s Shōchiku-za. At the lower right is listed a section on the haiku poems of famous actors. At the center, bottom, are the names of four actors who offer their thoughts on February’s memorial production honoring the death thirty-three years ago of the great star Nakamura Kanzaburō XVII. To its left is the title of a section about an independently produced dance recital featuring Onoe Ukon and his Ken no Kai group. Finally, there’s a discussion between two stars, Matsumoto Kōshirō X and Ichikawa Ennosuke IV about “Zoom Kabuki.” Yes. Zoom is part of Japan’s theatre scene as well.

ENGEKIKAI #2 (FEBRUARY 2021): COVER AND CONTENTS

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.”