The Actor in the Print: Morita Kanya XIII

Source: Crosscurrents in the Drama: East and West Vol. 6, Stanley Vincent Longman; University of Alabama Press, 1998. 
Morita Kanya XIII (1885–1932), whose father had built the Shintomi-za, was eager to bring kabuki into the 20th century. Among his activities, he organized the Literary Arts Theatre (Bungei-za) which became active in 1915. He gathered around him young reform-minded kabuki actors, such as Otani Tomoemon VI (1886–1923) and Ichikawa Ennosuke II. They joined together with actresses trained at the Imperial Theatre’s acting school to study the new modern drama of the West. Kanya’s troupe of kabuki actors and modern actresses mounted 10 productions of new plays and of translated Western drama through 1925. Kanya played Jean Valjean in Hugo’s Les Miserables in 1920 at the Y¢raku-za and Bluntschli in Shaw’s Arms and the Man (Buki to Hito) at the Imperial Theatre in 1922 (Waseda 1998:245– 47). Kanya acted in Romeo and Juliet, the group’s production, in 1918 and played a highly acclaimed Hamlet in the group’s fourth production in 1919, using Shoyø’s direct translation in each case. Typical of Kanya’s troupe, he, a 13th-generation kabuki theatre manager and actor, acted opposite a newly trained shingeki actress, Otowa Kaneko, playing Ophelia (Sanshain Gekijø 1993:4). 

The hereditary zamoto and actor Morita Kanya XII (1846–1897) opened the first modern kabuki theatre near the foreign settlement in Tsukiji in 1872. Named the Shintomi-za because it was in Shintomi-cho district, it offered chairs for Western visitors and introduced first gas and then electricity for stage lighting.

Kanya produced kabuki programs at night from five in the afternoon until eleven in the evening in the Western manner (daytime performance had been mandatory during the Tokugawa period). Kanya’s modernizing and Westernizing strategies included staging plays that would appeal to foreign residents and visiting dignitaries. The Shintomi-za quickly became the theatre of choice for Meiji-period elite and foreign spectators. 

The Play and Character in the Print: Genta Kagesue in Genta Kando

Source: Aio Gallery website http://www.aoigallery.com/Natori_Shunsen_p4.html
   1. Genta Kagesue is ordered by his father to commit seppuku in the play Genta Kando.
   2. Genta’s father believes that his son has disgraced the family name because he failed to be the first to attack the enemy in battle, but in reality, Genta intentionally deferred the honor to another warrior who had helped his father in the past.
   3. Genta’s mother understands this and manages to convince his son to spare his own life and to regain his honor by returning to the battlefield.