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"O-kuni kabukizu byōbu" (modified for use). A screen depicting O-kuni, the "founder" of kabuki, performing. Source: Colbase Database, courtesy of the Kyoto National Museum.
Kabuki has been performed continuously since its start at the very beginning of the Tokugawa Period (1603-1867). Tokugawa kabuki history can be divided broadly into an early period (first three-quarters of the 17th century); Genroku kabuki, a period in which defining features of the art took form (roughly, the last quarter of the 17th and first quarter of the 18th centuries); and finally, over a century of steady developments within stable systems of production, performance practices, and audience experience (middle of the 18th to late 19th centuries).
Kabuki was vibrant and culturally-responsive throughout the Tokugawa Period, when as a central form of popular culture, it evolved through constant innovation and attunement to social and cultural developments. In the late 19th century, new socio-political forces led to radically altered performance conditions and a loss of the spirit and creativity that come with popular, competitive, commercial theatre. Nevertheless, it lives on today, having adjusted to continual changes over the turbulent modern period through the same process of adaptation that kept it vital throughout its nearly 300-year Tokugawa-period run.
- Early Kabuki
The most commonly-cited etymology for the name kabuki explains it as a derivative of the verb kabuku, meaning to tilt or slant. The 17th-century term kabukimono (kabuki youth) indicated young men whose behavior was non-conforming or rebellious, “slanting” away from expected norms. Applied to the new performing art, the name kabuki referred to kabuki’s radical nature at its inception, during the historical moment of political and social change that led to the establishment of the Tokugawa regime.
A shrine priestess named Izumo no Okuni (ca. 1578 to ca. 1613) was responsible for the earliest form of the art. Okuni began as a miko, a female shrine attendant who performs the sacred dances called kagura. Some miko traveled to perform their dances in order to solicit contributions for the shrine to which they were attached. Okuni was originally attached to the important Izumo Shrine, and at some point, she went to Kyoto. There, she transformed her skills into an urban secular entertainment, performed at first in outdoor spaces such as seasonally dry river beds or on borrowed nō stages.
Close-up on O-kuni from the top image. Source: Colbase Database.
Short skits and group dances comprised Okuni’s mostly-female group performances known as onna kabuki, women’s kabuki (also called Okuni kabuki after Okuni herself.) Okuni took her performances in wholly new directions from her early shrine-based practices. The group dances by female performers, often of an erotic nature, combined with skits that enacted contemporary characters and encounters. Female performers played both male and female roles, and performers wore colorful and at times outlandish costumes, with Okuni starring sometimes in male attire or in hybrid Japanese/foreign costumes. These “out there” elements of Okuni’s performances remind of us why her new art was seen as edgy and radical, as “kabuki.”
Okuni also incorporated elements of many existing performing arts, including not only kagura but also nenbutsu odori, a dance form that originated as an invocation of the Buddha Amida, as well as the staged arts of nō and kyōgen. For example, many nō plays revolve around the encounter of a living person with a ghost, and Okuni performed one kind of skit in which she engaged with the spirit of a deceased samurai she had actually known, Nagoya Sansaburō (d. 1603).
The performances by Okuni and her troupe were immediately popular, and other female troupes emerged in imitation. The frequent erotic nature of the dances and ensuing sexual relations between actresses and audience members of different classes, eventually led to a government ban on female performers (1629) for purposes of social control. Young all-male troupes then quickly formed known as wakashu kabuki, young men’s kabuki or youths’ kabuki. They offered a similar mix of elements to capitalize on the earlier success of Okuni and the female troupes, and they, too, were soon banned (1652) to discourage private encounters between the socially low-placed actors and members of the samurai class who might disturb the peace by fighting over favorites.
During the rest of the Tokugawa Period, the government required that all roles in commercial kabuki be played by yarō, grown men. (Women could and did perform in private residences to which they were otherwise attached, but they could not perform publicly on the stages of licensed theatres.) In partial response to this significant restriction, the following Genroku Era saw great changes in kabuki, when it developed its most salient features as we still recognize them today and gained a secure foothold in the performing arts and cultural scene.
2. Genroku kabuki
2. Genroku kabuki
Intense development occurred during the Genroku Era, a cultural span of time from the last decades of the 17th century through approximately the first third of the 18th (strictly, 1688-1704 as a political period, but it indicates a longer cultural one). The characteristics of Okuni’s original material were gradually augmented and altered into more complex plays with lasting production, performance, and support elements: all male troupes, role types, star actors and fan support, lineages of actors typically specializing in male or female roles and specific acting styles, diverse play material, and great attention by actors and playwrights to acting skills and play preparation instead of the looser methods of performance preparation and presentation earlier in the 17th century. It is during this period that playwrights first became fixed members of kabuki troupes and that the playwriting process became systematized in support of the several annual productions that structured the kabuki calendar year. The gradual development of dedicated theatres, stages, and staging methods that served the evolving needs of the art also first appeared in the Genroku Era.
"Ukie butai shibai ya no ne". 18th century print depicting the annual November kaomise performance, in which lanterns with each of the acting family crests of the troupe's actors were hung from the rafters. Source: Colbase Database, courtesy of the Tokyo National Museum.
Competition with the puppet theatre was highly significant to kabuki creative and commercial success in the 18th century until kabuki finally overshadowed the puppet theatre in popularity in the later part of the century. A relationship of mutual borrowing enhanced the viability and development of each art in the Genroku Era. Especially important in this regard were the plays of the brilliant Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724) who wrote for both types of theatre. The sophistication and intricacy of Chikamatsu’s plays was a great impetus in spurring the quality of performances in both of these popular theatre forms. Aside from the competitive exchanges between kabuki and the puppet theatre, marked differences developed in kabuki methods and customs as practiced by Eastern (Edo, today’s Tokyo) and Western (Kyoto and Osaka) urban troupes, which occasionally resulted in cross-influences when actors or playwrights were contracted to move from one region to the other, whether temporarily or permanently.
3. Later eighteenth century to late nineteenth century
3. Later eighteenth century to late nineteenth century
A visit to the theatre was an all-day affair of performances and social gathering, where food could be delivered to one’s seat or breaks could be taken at nearby tea houses. Tea houses had surrounded theatres since the early 18th century, even before the characteristic architecture and capabilities of Tokugawa-period kabuki theatres had fully settled (a gradual development from the later 17th century to the end of the 18th.) From the Genroku Era, programs consisted of at least a multi-act period piece, jidaimono, and a multi-scene current-life play, sewamono, organized according to regional preferences. Jidaimono primarily focus on stories of the ruling samurai class, and sewamono on stories of the commoner classes, although characters of all classes typically appear in both types of plays. Plays highlighting actors’ dance skills, shosagoto, formed a third important category.
Many new genres of plays developed out of these basic categories, especially over the nineteenth century. For example, a genre called kizewamono, plays depicting low-life characters such as thieves or outlaws, are an offshoot of sewamono. Overall, constant innovation in some areas (for example, play material and staging techniques) combined with increasing stability in others (for example, inherited acting lines and performance methods) to characterize this dynamic period of over a century of kabuki productions. From the Genroku Era, kabuki’s role in the broader cultural sphere was similarly dynamic, with social interactions and professional cross influences between kabuki troupe members and artists, writers, and other significant movers and shakers of the Tokugawa Period.
Woodblock print by Utagawa Toyokuni, ca. 1800, depicting the inside of the Nakamura-za theater and a performance of Shunkan futatsu omokage. Source: ukiyo-e.org
4. Modern and contemporary kabuki
4. Modern and contemporary kabuki
The Meiji Period (1868-1912) followed the fall of the Tokugawa and marked the transition to “modern” Japan. It was a time of major political, social, and cultural re-organization, and kabuki was given a new role to meet the moment. Rather than continuing primarily as a commercial form of popular culture, it came to serve a political purpose, that of representing Japanese culture to Western nations that were demanding new levels of commercial and diplomatic relations. High-placed Japanese concerned themselves with how to present the country to advantage, how to show Japan as culturally sophisticated on par with the countries forcing change. “Traditional” performing arts, especially kabuki and noh, were called upon in the effort to gain international respect. In the case of kabuki, changes were made to conform with the conditions of European theatre in order to properly impress visiting foreign dignitaries. Elite members of Japanese society guided the changes, which included alterations to the playhouse (seating, lighting, etc.), to production methods, and to the composition and comportment of the audience, to name a few.
Photograph of the Kabuki-za Theater (1930s). Source: Tokyo Metropolitan Library
The changes served the purposes of the time. They also had lasting effects on the art. Over the ensuing decades, kabuki moved in a classical direction, even though new creativity and experimentation marked each new era, including incorporating play material that depicted current events, attempting a return of women actors to the stage, establishing new forms of troupe organization and support, integrating new stage technology, and taking advantage of new professional opportunities for star kabuki actors in film. Kabuki today is typically called a “traditional” or “classical” art, but it is not frozen. Creative attempts to generate new fans are in its DNA and have led, for example, to contemporary stage adaptations of manga that are heavy on spectacular tech-supported stage effects and modern stories.
Contributor: Katherine Saltzman-Li
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