• Kabuki: 蜘蛛絲梓弦 (Kumo no Ito), 実盛物語 (Tale of Sanemori)

1/25/26 (Sun), Tokyo Kabukiza

Kabuki continues to boom following the unexpected success of the Kabuki-themed film Kokuho, still running at theaters after six months (it was just nominated for a minor Oscar this week). This month’s Kabuki program largely featured up-and-coming performers in prominent roles, which encouragingly drew a healthy crowd of young audiences. The first of the three shows, not listed here, was a light three-part dance piece celebrating the new year, basically an excuse to show off a large number of cast members.

Kumo no Ito: The program says this 1765 drama is the oldest of numerous Kabuki shows about a spider spirit haunting an historic warrior, though a Noh piece from several centuries earlier is an obvious inspiration. In the original story, a lord suffering a strange illness is suddenly visited by a mysterious stranger, who says he has come to cure him. The stranger is eventually revealed to be the spirit of an evil spider, the very cause of the illness. He attacks the lord but is overcome by the lord’s retainer. The highlight in all versions is the spectacular casting of the web by the spider, a unique visual treat that has made this an audience favorite.

Today’s show was a showcase for the young Onoe Ukon, who appeared as the spider in no fewer than eight roles, both male and female, in various disguises (e.g., medicine peddler, courtesan, blind masseur). That involved lightning-fast costume and wig changes and athletic entrances/exits through the floor, the ceiling, the wall, a large urn, a staircase – they didn’t miss a trick (though a sequence of him flying through the air didn’t go as planned). He even played the role of the retainer who defeats the spider in a quick switch of roles. I think of Ukon mainly as an onnagata (female-role specialist), where he excels, and never envisioned him doing this exhausting and over-the-top work. He did a super job. They’re evidently priming him for stardom, and he seems ready.

Sanemori Monogatari: I coincidentally saw the staid Noh version of this play back in November, so it was fresh in my mind. The story dates from the medieval Tales of the Heike, which relates how the real-life warrior Sanemori, a former Genji warrior who has joined the enemy Heike side, goes futilely into battle, where he is killed and decapitated. When the killer washes the head, he is astonished to find that the warrior had dyed his hair black and is actually an old man. In the Noh piece, the ghost of Sanemori emerges as a restless soul and recounts the battle scene. In the Kabuki work (Act 3 from a longer play of 1757), the entire affair is still ahead of him, and our knowledge of what is to come drives the drama.

In contrast to the austere Noh drama, the Kabuki playwrights have conjured up a preposterous if inventive story. A Genji general’s widow, heavily pregnant, is hiding out in the household of friends. Sanemori and another Heike warrior, ordered to wipe out the Genji clan, have discovered her whereabouts and have come to murder her unborn child – but only if it is a son. Just as the impatient second warrior threatens to rip the child from her stomach to check if it’s a boy, the household announces that she has suddenly given birth – to a severed arm (it’s complicated). The soldiers leave, but after various nutty developments, including a woman who comes back from the dead and an enemy who cuts his own head off, the widow is spared.

The Kabuki additions, wild though they are, work splendidly in the context of the drama. A highlight is a speech by Sanemori, one of the most famous in Kabuki, relating how he was once a Genji warrior himself and, though now fighting for the enemy, is still loyal to his former rulers. The scenes with the child threatening to kill Sanemori and chasing him on his hobby horse are also highly enjoyable, topped by Sanemori’s exit on a horse down the hanamichi.

The key part of the dyed hair is presented very differently in each version. In Heike, the dye is seen as the warrior’s determination not to be an object of pity on the battlefield, whereas the Buddhist-inflected Noh depicts it as an act of vanity, an attachment to his physical looks that he must discard in order to achieve salvation. In the Kabuki, the child has challenged Sanemori to a duel to avenge his father’s death, but the warrior says he will wait until the kid grows up so that they can meet as equals on the battlefield, promising to dye his hair so that the boy will recognize him. That makes the action a sign of his loyalty and samurai ethos. An interesting study in contrasts.

Kankuro was superb in his key speech and both funny and moving in dealing with the child at the end. Shoroku, not always the most exciting performer, was fine as the villain-turned-good-guy Seno. Shichinosuke was luxury casting as the dead girl who is lifeless on stage for the entire scene other than a recovery lasting about 30 seconds, and Minosuke’s seven-year-old son was properly cute as the mie-posing child. The story has enough twists and turns to keep things interesting throughout. An entertaining rendering of the classic piece.