Review copied from the Spring 1998 issue of the ASIJ Ambassador.

The Stars Who Created Kabuki, by Laurence Kominz ’70. Kodansha International, 1997, 300 pages.

It is appropriate to approach the kabuki through its "stars," for this is a completely actor-oriented theater and the contemporary audience still goes to see Danjuro or Tamasaburo and not necessarily those plays in which they appear. Indeed, the plays in which they appear are of small account unless the star’s part is a favorite or one in which he is thought to be particularly good.

Kabuki theater; as drama, it is not given serious attention. The texts were not even published until the middle of the last century and then only those of Kawatake Mokuami (1816-1893), the most prolific of the writers: With over 360 plays, his work still comprises about half of the contemporary repertoire.

Chikamatsu had, of course, been published, but by then he was writing for the bunraku, a very different affair. Since the puppets were not stars, individually they commanded no real following and did not make large amounts of money for their managers.

It might be argued that the bunraku playwrights were thus able to create a kind of drama free of the continual demands of star turns, of the caprices of the actors themselves, and of the constant need to satisfy an appetite for raw sensation. Kabuki playwrights did not have that freedom—they were firmly attached to their actors. These indeed became stars in the Hollywood sense—personalities, semi-mythical figures larger than life, and it is within this MGM-like proscenium that one perhaps best understands the kabuki actor and his art.

The publicity writer of Kodansha’s very interesting biographical survey of three of the most famous kabuki stars plainly thought so. For Ichikawa Danjuro the blurb reads, "A profligate bisexual loving Daddy who ran amok on-stage and set out to conquer rival actors, only to be murdered in the most heinous crime in kabuki history . . ." This is, I believe, close to the proper tone, and if some complain that it is vulgar, what on earth do they think the kabuki is? Likewise, when the author of this survey translates from a 1688 book on actors, he adopts, I think, the proper mode. "The man called Ichikawa is the number-one sexy lover-boy unparalleled in 3,000 worlds, he is the most handsome actor in Edo and looks fabulous when he comes swaggering on stage."

Such overweening hype is, I think, proper kabuki expression. Certainly, reading the three lives presented here in great detail one thinks of others who live the same kinds of publicized lives: One can see Sylvester Stallone as good at aragoto, a real tachi, just as one can see the gentler Kevin Costner as the wagoto, the somewhat spineless nimaime. The kabuki actor has this screen-like presence.

Ichikawa Danjuro (1660-1704) was the first of this superstar breed. It was he who perfected aragoto acting—adequately translated as "rough stuff." In an account attributed to the actor himself, we read of how, invited by a daimyo to demonstrate this interesting technique, "I stripped to my underclothes and violently smashed the shoji and fusuma . . . the daimyo was delighted and rewarded me generously."

Sakata Tojuro (1647-1709), a contemporary and fellow actor of Danjuro’s, was the first master of the wagoto, playing the "gentle hero," always a popular role in conciliatory Japan. He also teamed up with Chikamatsu during the latter’s kabuki-writing days and was the first kabuki actor to refuse dance roles. This dedication to acting as such had its rewards. Among these was enormous popularity. Kominz tells us he was the kabuki’s first "romantic heartthrob" and compares his appeal to that of Rudolf Valentino.

Yoshizawa Ayame (1673-1729) was one of the first memorable onnagata. He also made acting, and not merely dancing, a part of his repertoire. Also, he was one of the first to lead a completely female life. Well, not completely—he fathered several children—but he believed that he was successful only if "his heart, mind, and body were one with his character’s."

The three stars of the early kabuki are in the concluding section of the book brought up to date, as it were, with shorter accounts of the present-day Danjuro, Ganjiro, Ennosuke and Tamasaburo. These accounts are somewhat hagiographic, but they serve their purpose in illustrating the major theme of this very interesting book, which is, in the author’s words, that "kabuki has always been an actors’ theater—in the age of Okuni, in the Genroku period and even today."