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HEROES, ROGUES, AND FOOLS 301 Later that night, zuburoku, having finally managed to appease his family, comes to join the rest of the group. He relates to his cronies the tale, from beginning to end, of how he was nabbed and dragged back to his house by old hanpachi, all of which makes everyone break out in uproarious laughter.) translated by Dylan McGee and Christopher Robins 2 + % KAWATAKE MOKUAMI Z The foremost creator of rogues on stage was Kawatake Mokuami (1816–1893), the last great kabuki playwright in the traditional mode who continued to lead the theatrical world well into the Meiji period. He is nicknamed the “bandit playwright,” due to his many successful portrayals of thieves, murderers, pimps, and other lowlife who populated Edo in the last years of the feudal Tokugawa rule. Said to have created three hundred plays in his lifetime, he is best known for such popular works as Three Kichizas Go To Yoshiwara (Sannin Kichiza Kuruwa no Hatsugai, 1860), The Tale of Rain and Kimono in Hachijō Weave (Tsuyu Kosode Mukashi Hachijō, 1873), and Banzui Chōbei, The Definitive Version (Kiwametsuke Banzui Chōbei, 1881), all featuring outrageous and alluring criminals. Like Tsuruya Nanboku IV, while Mokuami never shied away from painting contemporary life in all its grimness and squalor, his true talent lay in the creation of romantic panoramas, where desperadoes or their prostitute lovers suddenly break into verse. The scene of Hamamatsuya store, translated here, was first performed in 1862 at Edo’s Ichimuraza Theater as part of a much longer play titled The Storybook of Aoto Fujitsuna, Told in Colored Prints (Aoto Zōshi Hana no Nishiki-e). This particular scene remains one of the perennial favorites on the kabuki stage and is sure to be performed at least once a year. Popularly entitled“BententheThief,”thesceneexistssquarelyinthetypicalMokuami mold, with its fanciful world of dashing thieves, bound to one another by blood vows, whose quick wits and insouciant savoir faire enable them to deceive stolid samurai, conservative tradesmen, and bumbling policemen alike. “You don’t know me? Then let me fill you in . . .” The introduction to Benten Kozō’s revelation speech remains one of the few kabuki lines that retains anything approaching wide recognition in modern Japan, but when 302 HEROES, ROGUES, AND FOOLS read on the page the line would seem unworthy of its fame. Still, the reader must remember that kabuki plays were originally written to be performed, and there was little tradition of publishing scripts until relatively recently. In contrast to much “classical” Western drama, kabuki does not exist as literature divorced from its performance. Kabuki texts demand that the reader try to envisage the lines as they would sound when returned to their proper cultural environment on stage, richly intoned by an accomplished actor. When seeninthispropercontext, eventhat unassumingopening, “Youdon’tknow me? Then let me fill you in . . . ,” suddenly reveals a multitude of depths and resonances that extend beyond the simple meaning of the words. In terms of the plot, the thieves’ scheme to defraud a wealthy shop has been exposed; their disguises as a beautiful samurai woman and her attendant have been seen through. This is the dramatic high point of the scene, in which their true identities are proudly and aggressively declaimed. From the audience’s point of view, this is the moment they have been waiting for, a moment when the actor is given a platform to display all his vocal gifts in a poetic and highly rhythmic, almost musical, tour de force. For older fans, it is an opportunity to compare a current star’s realization of the role with performances by the previous generation; for younger enthusiasts, it is the high point of one of the best-loved and frequently revived plays in the repertoire. For the actor, the line “Then let me fill you in . . .” carries a double meaning. As well as being the insouciant challenge of an urban outlaw to his respectable victims, it is also a direct invitation to the audience to sit forward, pay attention, and be swayed by his power. In terms of theatrical effect, it is a moment when the convincing dialogue and comic-realistic action of the scene melts into a rapture of unnaturalistic, lyrical couplets, and the action seems to freeze into a colorful and intensely erotic tableau. Visually, a highly charged eroticism is at the fore as the primly beautiful and flirtatiously shy young samurai girl (the clerks’ reaction to her is one of untrammeled lust) is...

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