• Kabuki:巷談宵宮雨 (Kodan Yomiya no Ame)

6/20/18 (Wed), Kabukiza, Tokyo

Kodan Yomiya no Ame (Rain on the Festival Eve) is the infrequently seen 1936 work that kicked off Uno Nobuo’s career as one of the 20th century’s best known Kabuki writers. The play is set in the pre-modern Edo Era, then already a distant memory for most audiences. A randy priest Ryutatsu had a daughter Otora in an illicit love affair and entrusted her secretly to his nephew Taju to raise. Taju and his wife Ochi abused Otora for years, using her mainly to blackmail the uncle, then sold her off when she was of age to an old and sickly doctor. The miserable daughter has come back to Taju’s neighbor begging for mercy, but Taju, having received a substantial sum from the doctor, orders her to go back, telling her that the aged man will die anyway in a few years.

Meanwhile, Ryutatsu, having had one affair too many, has been banished from his temple and comes to stay with Taju and Ochi. Taju is reluctant at first, but his attitude quickly changes when he discovers that his uncle has a buried treasure of 100 ryo. Taju agrees to retrieve the treasure for the old man and manages with difficulty to dig it up in the middle of the night. He delivers the goods proudly to Ryutatsu with expectation of a good reward. In the event, the miserly priest only offers 2 ryo, causing the nephew to explode. After a major row and several complications, Taju, to the shock of his wife, murders the uncle by slipping rat poison into his food. He puts the body into a trunk and, despite Ochi’s pleas not to leave her alone, goes to dump it into the river. While he is gone, Ochi is visited by Ryutatsu’s ghost – and things do not go well. Taju is informed later that Ochi’s corpse has been found in the river, apparently a suicide. She has been fished out and placed on the bridge by revelers from the nearby Fukagawa Hachiman Festival. He runs to the river in the driving rain. Hovering over the body is the spirit of Ryutatsu, who calls to him eerily. The terrified Taju falls (or jumps) from the bridge into the river. The final image is Ryutatsu’s ghost, bathed in light, kneeling over his secret daughter’s body.

Despite the gruesome details, the show is for the most part a comedy until the final scenes. The characters are very finely drawn, and their banter is one of the show’s strengths. The stringy priest and scheming nephew are both impossible to dislike in their unapologetic nastiness, and their back-and-forth is terrific. The dialogue in fact sounds quite up-to-date; despite its Edo Era setting, the show is written with a modern sensibility. As with most works in the 20th-century Shin (new) Kabuki genre, the author is careful to give each of the characters a consistent personality and credible motivations for their actions, a reflection of Western influence and changing audience tastes.

Technically, the show made good use of the revolving stage to go from Taju’s house to the neighbor’s place, though there was an uncomfortable lull when the curtains closed overly long for one set change – surely they can figure out a smoother transition. The ghostly effects were nicely creepy: the ghost’s surprise appearance in the room, the wife’s abrupt backslide into the ghost’s lair, the brilliantly sinister lighting (especially the final moment).

Shikan didn’t miss a laugh as the old codger of a priest, especially in his anxiety over the buried 100 ryo. Shoroku, not always my favorite, was every bit Shikan’s equal as the short-tempered Taju. He seems more suited for modern roles like this than the classic pieces and was superb in all the various emotions on display. Jakuemon made a worthy foil as Ochi, Baika was excellent as the wife next door, and Kitsusaburo had an impressive cameo as the weak and rickety rat poison salesman. A deserved classic and a fun piece with a great cast. It’s a mystery why this is not done more often.