The Play Narukami

Source: Kabuki Eighteen Traditional Dramas, Kawatake Toshio, Chronicle Books, 1985, p. 24.
"Its story originally came to Japan from India and after a Nō play "Ikkaku Sennin" it was taken up for Kabuki. It is a delightful drama.  The holy priest Narukami, angry that his petition to the Imperial Court has been refused, captures the dragon god of rain (ryūjin) and confines him in a rock pool beneath the waterfall which he seals off with a straw rope to indicate the sacred boundary.  The country is without rain and so it is decided at the Imperial Court to send the beautiful and clever princess [Kumo no Taemahime] to Narukami.  Narukami faints when the princess demonstrates how she had to lift up her skirt to get across a stream to reach her lover.  When she revives him with water from her mouth, he for a moment realizes the danger.  To prevent any action by him, the princess tells him that she wants to become a nun and when they are left alone she starts to complain of a violent pain.  Their embrace only leads to a desire to become husband and wife which has to be celebrated with a drink of sake.  Drunk, Narukami tells the princess how to release the god of rain and falls asleep.  The princess hastily cuts the straw rope and her mission accomplished, departs.  Narukami, in a different, spectacular wig, makeup and costume wakes up and wonders why it is raining and then gets into an uncontrollable rage and runs off after her."

The Kabuki Eighteen

Source: Kabuki Encyclopedia, An English-Language Adaption of Kabuki Jiten, Samuel L. Leiter, Greenwood Press, 1979, p. 152.
"The Kabuki Eighteen," a collection of plays established by Ichikawa Danjūrō VII, stresses the special aragoto acting art of the Danjūrō line.  In the Meiji period other acting families began to gather their most successful plays into similar collections.  See the Title Page from the series The Kabuki Eighteen (Kabuki Jūhachiban) for the list of plays.