Sonezaki Shinju (Love Suicides at Sonezaki), and: Tsuri Onna (Fishing for a Wife) (review)

Sonezaki Shinju (Love Suicides at Sonezaki) and Tsuri Onna (Fishing For A Wife). By Chikamatsu Monzaemon and Kawatake Mokuami. Chikamatsu-za, at Sadler's Wells, London. 7 June 2001.

This performance of two Kabuki plays, billed as Shochiku Grand Kabuki, was more than entertaining--it was an event of cross-cultural importance. As part of London's Japan 2001, a nation-wide celebration of Japanese culture, the Kabuki plays allowed their audiences to experience a non-Western art form in the context of cultural exchange. In the production program, Nakamura Ganjirô III, the artistic director of Chikamatsu-za, wrote that he hoped "to contribute to the mutual understanding of culture between Britain and Japan," while Sadayuki Hayashi, the Japanese ambassador, believed the performance would "promot[e] and deepe[n] friendship and understanding between our two countries."

Press releases strove to make Kabuki "intelligible" to London audiences. Chikamatsu Monzaemon, the author of Sonezaki Shinjû (Love Suicides at Sonezaki), was described as Japan's equivalent of Shakespeare, and his play as a Japanese Romeo and Juliet. Yet in performance the uniqueness of Kabuki was emphasized, particularly through the choice of the comic Tsuri Onna (Fishing For a Wife) to precede Sonezaki Shinjû. Kabuki's dynamic variety of theatrical devices goes far beyond poetic texts: the performances combined stylized imagery, dance-like movement, song, and live music with realistic interaction between characters.

Both pieces were dominated by the presence of Ganjirô, the founder and leading actor of Chikamatsu-za. He is described in the program as "one of the great names in Kabuki theatre and a living National Treasure in Japan." Ganjirô is famous for his work as an onnagata, and has played the role of Ohatsu, the young courtesan heroine of Sonezaki Shinjû, over 1,000 times since his debut in 1953.

Ganjirô's versatility was wonderfully highlighted in the two pieces on the program. In Tsuri Onna, he played the comic servant Tarôkaja, who visited a religious shrine with his Lord (Bandô Kichiya II) where both prayed for wives. As the title suggests, they literally ended up fishing for them, casting fishing lines offstage until they "hooked" their brides. Most of the comedy in this piece derived from the contrast between the wives. Although both women were caricatures of femininity, the Lord's beautiful wife (Nakamura Senjaku III) used controlled and elegant movements. Her dance (most of the piece was conveyed through dance rather than dialogue) with the Lord emphasized the synchronicity of their movements, even as she stamped her feet at him suggestively. Tarôkaja's wife, the Ugly Woman (Nakamura Kanjaku V), was much more aggressive in her mating dance: the stamps of her feet made Tarôkaja fall over, and occasionally she manipulated him like a puppet. The final image of the play had her leading Tarôkaja sheepishly offstage, the fishhook firmly planted in his mouth.

Sonezaki Shinjû, while primarily a tragedy, opened with a comedic introduction to the lovers, Ohatsu (Ganjirô) and Tokubei (Kanjaku). While Ohatsu worried about her lover's prolonged absence in despairing tones, Tokubei entered wearing a ridiculously large straw hat that obscured his face, which impeded Ohatsu's kisses. In act 2, Ohatsu smuggled Tokubei into the Tenmaya brothel under her robe and hid him under a veranda ledge, all of which elicited laughter from the audience, particularly as Tokubei shared his lover's pipe while in hiding. Their flight from the brothel under cover of darkness was also played for laughs, as the lovers clumsily evaded a sleepy maid, fell down stairs, and inadvertently bumped into the furniture.

Despite the comic elements, Ganjirô and his son Kanjaku movingly played the relationship between Ohatsu and Tokubei. One of the most thrilling scenes came in the second act, in which Ohatsu defended her lover (still hidden under the veranda) to his enemies and vowed to commit suicide with him if they could not...