Nakamura Kichizō's A Vicarage (1910) and Ibsen

NAKAMURA KICHIZO'S A VICARAGE (1910) AND IBSEN I AFTER THE INTRODUCTION OF Ibsen into Japan a number of young Japanese playwrights wrote plays in the Ibsen manner. Some of them learned Ibsen's dramatic technique, while others borrowed Ibsen's ideas and skillfully reproduced them in their own plays with Japanese background. Nakamura Kichizo (1877-1941) was one of those writers. However, the difference between others and Nakamura is that the former knew Ibsen in Japan only, while the latter became familiar with Ibsen in countries other than his own. Nakamura published, after his return to Japan, obei InshOki (Impressions of Europe and America) in 1910, in which he described an incident in Central Park: It looks like a picture-postcard. I am now a person in the postcard and read Ibsen's plays which I carried here with me. When my eyes are tired, I look at the pond, enchanted by the intense sunlight gleaming with ripples. And suddenly I resume reading as if I recalled what I was reading.1 This was when Nakamura fell in love with Ibsen, several months after he arrived in the United States. In 1906, when he planned to study abroad, he was already known as a young, new novelist in Japan. While he was a student at Waseda University in Tokyo, he made his debut in the literary world with his prize novel, Ichijiku (The Fig, 1901), which dealt with a pastor who returned to Japan with his American wife and was no longer accepted. He had no intention initially of studying literature abroad. Instead, since he had deep doubt about Christianity and life, he studied at Princeton Theological Seminary, hoping to become a social reformer. There he became skeptical of the orthodox principles of the school and soon left Princeton for Union Theological Seminary in New York whose liberal educational policy he admired. There he met Mr. K. whose full name is unknown. Mr. K. had resigned his position as lieutenant in the JapaI).ese Navy to study theology in the same seminary, and was determined either to be a Christian or not to be a Christian, "all or nothing." At that time, Nakamura's skepticism was deepening. Attending productions of 1 Nakamura Kichizo, Obei InshOki (Tokyo: Shunjiisha, 1910), p. 137. 440 1967 A Vicarage AND IBSEN 441 Ibsen's plays made him realize his uncertainties and fears; and he and Mr. K. read Ibsen for reassurance. Although Nakamura accepted Christ as a model for human action, his admiration of Nietzsche, Ibsen, and Charles Darwin, was almost as great. By this time Nakamura had read Emperor and Galilean and Brand; these plays he recommended to Mr. K. In the meantime, Nakamura was stimulated and deeply impressed with Brander Matthew's (185l!-1929) profound knowledge and fine vision when he read his book. The Development of the Drama~2 and he enrolled in Columbia University the next spring in order to attend Dr. Matthew's lectures. At Columbia his interest in Ibsen was strengthened when he heard William Archer (1856-1924), English dramatic critic, lecture.s It was probably at this time Nakamura determined to become a playwright himself. On his return to Japan, in 1909, he not only wrote plays under Ibsen's influence, e.g., Bokushi no Ie (A Vicarage, 1910) but also completed a study of Ibsen, which was published by ToM Shuppan Kabushiki Gaisha in Tokyo, in 1914 and 1926 (revised edition), under the title Ibusen. Because of this work, he was nicknamed Henrik Nakamura. The Master Builder, he said, was "the Bible of modern literature";4 of Little Eyolf, "the one I love best among Ibsen plays."11 Performances of Ibsen plays which he saw abroad are as follows: Love's Comedy, Peer Gynt, Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder, A Doll's House (three times), and Rosmersholm (twice) in New York in the summer of 1907 to June, 1908; Hedda Gabler in London in the summer of 1908; A Doll's House, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm , The Lady from the Sea, Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman and When We Dead Awaken in Berlin during the period from July, 1908 to October, 1909. II Nakamura's...