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The Okuni Soshi Manuscripts As Testimony

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The Okuni Soshi Manuscripts As Testimony 1 2 The Okuni sōshi manuscripts as testimony of a point of fracture in classical Japanese theatre Ivan R. V. Rumánek Habilitační práce Masarykova univerzita 2019 3 4 CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ..............................................................................7 INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................10 Basic concepts and terminology ......................................................................15 I. KABUKI´S PREDECESSORS ......................................................................17 1. Transformations in (sarugaku) nō ...............................................................20 Aragoto and wagoto style in nō ...........................................................27 2. Kyōgen .........................................................................................................31 3. Genres outside nōgaku .................................................................................34 II. NŌ AND OKUNI KABUKI ..........................................................................41 YEAR 1600 -THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA- ..................................44 HISTORICAL REFERENCES TO IZUMO NO OKUNI .........................46 MAI AND ODORI ................................................................................50 YAYAKO ODORI ..................................................................................51 EMERGENCE OF KABUKI AS A LIFESTYLE ................................57 DESCRIPTION OF THE OKUNI S SŌSHI ................................................60 Nō in early kabuki -nō structure in the text of Kuni Jo-kab. Ekotoba ..64 Okuni Sōshi texts ..................................................................................69 Okuni Sōshi images ..............................................................................73 Kabuki terminology ..............................................................................80 “Mugen humour” ..................................................................................82 INTERPRETATION OF THE SŌSHI ........................................................84 IDENTITIES OF FIGURES IN THE OKUNI SŌSHI .........................86 THE STRUCTURE OF THE PERFORMANCES DEPICTED IN THE OKUNI SŌSHI ....................................................................................................108 “Mugen kabuki” with nenbutsu odori .................................114 1. Nenbutsu .................................................................114 2. Mugen .....................................................................115 3. The “kabuki” ...........................................................116 4. Kabuki kouta songs ................................................120 5 Jōruri modoki songs ...................................................122 Furo-agari ..................................................................123 The ending .................................................................124 ACTORS – OKUNI’S TROUPE .......................................................126 THE KIRISHITAN ISSUE ..........................................................................131 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................134 SUMMARY........................................................................................................141 REZUMÉ............................................................................................................142 APPENDIX: Okuni sōshi texts ........................................................................143 Alternative names of Okuni sōshi ..................................................................143 Publications used ...........................................................................................145 OKUNI SŌSHI TRANSLATIONS .............................................................146 1. KUNI JO-KABUKI EKOTOBA (“Kyōdai scroll”) ......................146 2. KABUKI (NO) SAUSHI ...............................................................150 3. OKUNI KABUKI EKOTOBA DANKAN (“Bunkakan book”) ...156 OKUNI SŌSHI ORIGINALS .....................................................................157 1. KUNI JO-KABUKI EKOTOBA (“Kyōdai scroll”) ......................157 2. KABUKI (NO) SAUSHI ...............................................................161 3. OKUNI KABUKI EKOTOBA DANKAN (“Bunkakan book”) ...166 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................167 INDEX................................................................................................................180 6 7 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The illustrations used in this study are from the following sources: “Bkk”: Bunkakan fragmetnts: Hattori Yukio 1968 “Shoki kabuki no ichigashō ni tsuite – Yamato Bunkakanbon ‘Okuni kabuki sōshi’ kō” in Yamato Bunka XLIX, November, p. 7. Nara: Yamato Bunkakan. “Kd”: Kyōdai scroll: Kuni Jo-kabuki Ekotoba – Kotobagaki oyobi kaisetsu kyō I, II. 1993, with Prefaces by Izui Hisanosuke dated 1951 and Asao Naohiro dated 1993, and unsigned Japanese and English introductory afterwords. Kyoto: Library of Kyoto University. “Ss”: Kabuki no Saushi: Geinōshi Kenkyūkai (eds.) 1973 Nihon shomin bunkashi-ryō shūsei VI, 442-452. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō. Kabuki Zukan 歌舞伎図鑑, available at (as of 13 February 2019): http://izucul.cocolog-nifty.com/balance/cat6037786/ “Shijō-gawara yūraku zubyōbu” 四条河原遊楽図屏風 1966 in Rakuchū rakugai zu 洛中洛外図, edited by Kyōto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 京都国立博物 館, p. 63. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten. 1. Chaya no asobi – Bkk (Bkk pic. 2) 2. Chaya no asobi - Kd (Kd pic. 11) 3. Chaya no asobi – Ss (Ss pic. 10) 4. Bōrei image – Bkk (Bkk pic. 1) 5. Bōrei image – Kd (Kd pic. 7) 8 6. Bōrei image - Ss (Ss pic. 8) 7. Saruwaka and kaka - Ss (Ss pic. 10) 8. Chaya figures – Bkk (Bkk pic. 2) 9. Sanza (left) and Okuni (right) – Ss 10. Chaya no asobi I - Kd (Kd pic. 8) 11. Chaya no asobi II - Kd (Kd pic. 9) 12. Chaya no asobi III - Kd (Kd pic. 11) 13. Sitting spectator (?) – Kabuki Zukan Okuni picture 14. Sitting spectator (?) – Shijō-gawara yūraku zubyōbu 15. Nenbutsu – Bkk (Bkk pic. 1) 16. Two female figures – Ss (Ss pic. 4) 17. Okuni with a cap – Ss (Ss pic. 10) 18. Nagoya figure with a fiddle (or pipe?) – Kd (Kd pic. 8) 19. Narihira - Ss (Ss pic. 6) 20. Sanza and saruwaka (left) and Okuni (right) – Ss (Ss pic. 11, 12) 9 10 INTRODUCTION At the beginning of the seventeenth century, nō was the predominant form of theatre patronized by the powerful samurai class. Since nō, with its two centuries long tradition, was what represented “Japanese theatre”, the emergence of a new fashionable skit-and-dance performance called kabuki odori in the first years of the Edo shogunate was an event which noone could foresee and the development of which led to the formation of an alternative to nō. Kabuki was a vibrant new performance, while nō was soon to become the exclusive, and conservative art for the shogunate. After the Battle at Sekigahara in 1600, followed by the siege of Osaka in 1615, Japan enjoyed relative peace. With peace came the rise of new entertainments, especially in the capital, Kyoto, and the two newer cities of Osaka and Edo. Kabuki was the most important product of this new realm of entertainments. There was a considerable gap between the new theatrical genre of kabuki and the previous tradition of nō. While Zeami (1363 or 4 – c.1443), the founder of classical nō, emphasized adhering closely to one’s source, the popular theatre of the Edo period was more ahistorical, distorting “facts” by adding auspicious endings, and inventing characters and situations. Zeami intended his work to please the highly literate and elite community surrounding the Muromachi shoguns, whereas Chikamatsu (1653-1724), the icon of mature kabuki, addressed popular audiences in urban Kyoto and Osaka. The townspeople wanted stories that related to their own lives: the crucial difference from pre-Tokugawa oral-narrative tradition was that the audiences came to want the stories reflecting contemporary life. “The fundamental principle of oral performance [...] remains the same. The difference in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is the will to bring the past to the present.”1 It is not the purpose of this study to give a full account of the genesis of kabuki. What this study focuses on is a group of four manuscriptal materials called Okuni sōshi in which the transition process between nō and kabuki is textually and 1 Gerstle 2000 p. 53. 11 pictorially encapsuled. Nō is certainly not the only, and probably not the closest model for developments within early kabuki. Nevertheless, it is the aim of this study to identify the point of fracture when nō virtually changes into early kabuki within the texts themselves, and the further question is what information can be drawn from these materials about the particular form of the performances and staging of early kabuki. My methodology is hermeneutical and comparative. It is based on an analysis of primary sources. Okuni sōshi, the manuscripts pertaining to early kabuki are historical monuments which have their narrative and informational value as testimonies to the particular phase in the development of the performing arts. By comparing several versions of texts and illustrations I shall endeavour to make as clear a picture as possible of the character that early kabuki might have had and in which aspects it differed from nō. The methodology includes transcription
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