• Kabuki: 盟三五大切  (Kamikakete Sango Taisetsu)

8/20/18 (Mon), Tokyo

The full-length version of Tsuruya Nanboku’s popular piece. The courtesan Koman, in league with her husband (disguised as her “manager”), seeks to extort a large amount of money from a starry-eyed samurai named Gengobe with the false promise of marriage. As it turns out, both sides want the money for the same noble goal of funding the famous vendetta of the 47 ronin. Koman plans to give the money to Fuwa Kazuemon, one of the ronin – without knowing that the ronin is in fact that very customer, Gengobe, who is using an alias for his own reasons (it’s complicated). The samurai goes berserk after he is swindled out of the precious cash that he had gone to great lengths to procure, and ultimately murders the woman without realizing her pure motive.

The story is much more convoluted than that, involving coincidental meetings, overheard conversations, a tattoo as an important plot device, intricate links both to Chushingura and the author’s own hit Yotsuya Kaidan, unexpected character developments, lots of blood and gore and more. Nanboku throws a lot of wild pieces out there but manages adeptly to bring them together at the end. As usual, he misses no chance to shock, including the brutal murder of a screaming woman’s infant, headless bodies and detached arms thrown unceremoniously aside, the emotional torture of the samurai, and a bizarre scene in which the samurai, having decapitated the woman who deceived him, brings her head home to feed it. At the same time, the show is filled with comic touches, like the landlord pretending to be the ghost of Oiwa (the one murdered in Yotsuya Kaidan) to squeeze money out of tenants. The stage effects, again a Nanboku specialty, were also fun, like the boats sailing up the hanamichi at the opening, the creative murders, Sangoro popping out of the saké cask and some creative lighting.

Most impressively, the show created characters we cared about, no small achievement in this large cast. Koshiro acquitted himself well as Gengobe in both his comic and tragic aspects, Shichinosuke was superb as always as the courtesan Koman, and Shido did unusually well as Sangoro (he’s good at these rough character types). Best among the others in a strong cast were a terrific performance by the young Hashinosuke as Gengobe’s servant and Kingo as Gengobe’s uncle. Kataoka Kamezo is always a welcome presence as well. The last time I saw this play was seven years ago in the more avant-garde Cocoon Kabuki, where the shock factor was given even greater prominence in a wild and effective production. But this standard staging shows that it hardly needs the Cocoon treatment. Highly recommended.