V
For the same reason that the music of shibai, depending as it does on unfamiliar groupings of sound and intricate and ever-changing rhythms, does not appeal immediately to Occidental ears, so the aragoto plays of Kabuki are equally incomprehensible. They are largely the improvisations of actors, have little plot, and sometimes are quite meaningless. Unliterary they are to a degree. But their whole value lies in the remarkable stage treatment they display, how it is done apparently being of much greater importance than what it is about. These strange plays do not appeal to the intellect, nor are they planned to stir the emotions. They are not intended to be anything in particular, simply the unconscious theatre instinct at work creating a feast of colour and movement to spread before the eyes.
The eighteen pieces of the Danjuro family are for the most part aragoto, in which acting and posture are the chief features. Sukeroku is among the best of these quaint Ichikawa pieces. The scene is the outside of a house in the gay quarters, the entire front vermilion-coloured and barred, the usual show place for the inmates according to the old custom. Several gorgeous processions pass over the hanamichi to the stage, and then comes the villain, a venerable white-haired old gentleman, in bronze brocade, the very person the hero, Sukeroku, seeks.
Sukeroku makes an unusual entrance, running in through the audience, his head bowed low and covered from sight by a half-shut oiled-paper umbrella. He makes a striking theatrical figure, for he wears a black kimono lined with pale blue and edged with scarlet, while his belt, or obi, is of green brocade bearing for design in gold the familiar three-rice-measure crest of the first Danjuro. A red neckcloth sets off the white mask-like face with the broad red outlines about the eyes, true to the make-up traditions of the Ichikawa house. A purple band is tied around his head and falls in folds at one side.
In his postures on the hanamichi with his black and white umbrella, Sukeroku every second assumes a new pose, that causes him to appear like a piece of statuary in a bewildering number of aspects, as he shadows forth the meaning of the character he represents,—the bravery and fighting spirit of an otokodate, or man of the people, always ready to defend the weak. He also suggests that Sukeroku is in reality Goro, one of the Soga brothers, and that he is disguised as Sukeroku, and is searching for a lost sword.
Morita Kanya, the thirteenth, son of the aggressive theatre manager of Meiji, as Yoshitsune, the young hero of the music-drama Kanjincho.
Thus the actors who created the character in the time of the fifth Danjuro knew what they were about, for the Soga brothers, otokodate, chivalrous commoners and searchers after swords, were prime favourites with Yedo audiences, and they were combined for greater effect in the character of Sukeroku.
Seeking for a quarrel in the pleasure quarters, brave Sukeroku is no respecter of persons, for his only aim is to make men draw their swords that he may find the one of his quest.
His taunting of the stately old villain in the attempt to arouse his ire, and the intimidation of a samurai whom he causes to throw down his swords and then crawl on all fours between his outstretched legs, are full of humour.
As a last attempt to make the venerable miscreant show his sword Sukeroku, championed by Agimaki, the gorgeous belle of the quarter, suddenly jumps forth from his hiding-place behind Agimaki’s ample robes, and assaults the brocade-clad dignitary, who involuntarily draws his blade. At sight of it Sukeroku immediately recognises that it is the precious weapon of his search.
Later he kills the villain and takes the sword, when a new danger threatens him as the men of the enemy are about to surround him. He looks about to find a place of concealment, and as a last resort jumps into a big water tank used on the occasion of a fire. Throwing aside a pyramid of small tubs, that are used as ornaments across the top of the same, he knocks the bottom out of one and placing it over his head allows it to float on the surface of the water.
The searching party look everywhere to find him. They even climb to the roof of the house, but Sukeroku and his stolen sword are safe under the water.
When he emerges real water splashes all over the stage and comes as a surprise in a play so entirely artificial and unreal. Perhaps on that very account it has the intended effect, for the audience is quite startled by the audacity and bravery of this highly imaginary hero.
Kagekiyo, a legendary character, the hero of several Nō dramas, is the central figure in an aragoto piece in the possession of the Ichikawa family. It represents the actors’ impress upon theatre material, nebulous, without the concentration that comes from a literary mind. Yet to lovers of the unreal it is full of attraction.
Certainly very little of the world of reality clings about the material or movement of this one-act species of drama which has for motive the valour and strength of Kagekiyo, a general of the Heike clan, whose cause has been defeated and who is confined in a cavern.
His appearance is dramatic in the extreme, when the guards allow him to gaze forth from a square opening in the bars of his prison-cave. His face is heavily lined with broad red lines, his fierce and threatening top-knot of hair that stands straight on end is accentuated by peculiar side wings of lacquered wood suggesting strands of hair that form a frame for the ferocious countenance. His costume of glittering gold brocade, with vivid touches of green and red, is in keeping with the strange visage of the dauntless warrior.
That he may taste all the bitterness of defeat, his wife and daughter are led in bound with rope, and he is brought forth to speak with them, his arms tied behind him in the most approved manner of the modern serial moving picture.
When everything seems against the outlandish hero, he is freed from his fetters and allowed to sit on a huge boulder in the centre of the stage, where he postures as he relates the misfortunes of his clan and declares his loyalty—an active figure whose every gesture is all the more conspicuous because of the groupings of the immovable personages on either side.
Kagekiyo shows some traces of human emotion, and is overcome at the treatment meted out to his wife and daughter, yet still keeps a stout heart, even when his son is placed within the gloomy cavern.
He scorns the Genji generals who gaze on his captivity, by refusing their offerings of food, kicking it unceremoniously away, and bellows in the extravagant style that is so typical of aragoto. At length his outraged feeling getting the best of him he lifts up the great stone on which he has been sitting and uses it as a missile to throw at the Genji followers, who, driven hither and thither, are finally routed. Kagekiyo, fighting to a finish, reaches a climax of grotesqueness as he poses in triumphant attitude brandishing a large beam of wood which has been his weapon of defence.