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Samurai Movies (19)

February 10, 2022

[Entertainment] In the movie 'Yaji Kita dochu Teresko', Mr. Kita is a Kabuki performer. He was acting in a Kabuki theater in Edo. But while performing, he made a big mistake, and decided to leave Edo. He asked his friend Mr. Yaji to travel with him. The person who played the character Yaji was a famous active Kabuki performer. When Mr. Kita made the big mistake, he was performing 'Chushin-gura', which was the most famous and popular play in the Edo Period. It was a story of a han in which its daimyo tried to hurt another daimyo who was very mean to him. The setting was in the Edo Castle. It was severely prohibited to fight in the castle, so the daimyo who was trying to hurt the other daimyo was executed. This han's 47 retainers kept pretending not to do anything, but waited and planned and after a year they accomplished to exact revenge -- killing the mean daimyo. But it infringed with the law, they accepted to commit 'sepuku', kill themselves. The incident became a play and became a big hit. People cheered for the samurai who had kept their loyalty. In the movie, a lot of spectators in the hall were normal citizens. In the Edo period, Kabuki was one of the most popular entertainments. Kabuki has some unique features. They are performed by only men, who wear a lot of makeup. Their way of speaking was extremely loud and slow, their movement was also exaggerated. The origin of Kabuki was started by a very skillful female performer and her group, who danced while singing. As this type of performance became popular, the government banned women to appear on stages because they caused too much attraction, and the authorities were afraid of what was happening. They also made a lot of rules for performances. Before Kabuki, there was also another popular performance using puppets called 'jyoruri'. Performers used realistic type of puppets, others talked, and others played instruments such as a flute, drums, shamisen, etc. They were transferred to Kabuki. He had heard that there were a lot of local 'jyoruri' groups in the local areas.   One more type performance was 'noh'. Masked performers danced citing a story. Daimyo liked to perform it and sometimes showed their 'noh' in front of their retainers and customers. Another performance was 'Kyougen', which was a comical play. The performers didn't wear much makeup, although they spoke exaggeratedly. You can see it on YouTube. 'Kagura' was a play which had been performed and preserved by local citizens. They performed in front of a shrine, usually during an annual neighborhood event. He had watched some and was moved by their professional-like skills. He also had watched a local dance, which expressed each season of rice producing, and showed gratitude for good harvests. It was elegant. In addition, there were folk songs called 'minyo', which are still popular today. They were normally a cappella, with no instruments. From Wikipedia, there remained about 60,000 songs. In his area, there was a famous minyo called 'Nambu Cattle Chasing Song'. As he got old, he came to like these types of ethnic, relaxed tempo songs. There were a lot of old children's play songs. When he was a child, about a 100 years after the end of the Edo period, he would play those games with the other children of his neighborhood. He could remember one: Hand in hand, making a line as a group, facing the opposite line of the other kids, singing alternately their lines and each moved to the front, then dismissed listening to the other's singing. The game was called 'Hana-ichi-monme'. 'Hana' is flower, 'monme' is a unit of weight. Maybe at that time, the kids didn't know what 'monme' was. He could remember the lyrics even now. At night mothers were singing 'komori-uta', lullaby, 'komori' means 'taking care of child'. He didn't know whether recent mothers knew of those songs. He had heard that in the Edo period, there were a lot of chances for normal people to sing and recite some sentences from memory, which enabled them to communicate with anybody, regardless of their class.     (To be continued ...)

No. 465




*active :現役の
*retainer :家来
*accomplish :達成する
*exact revenge :復讐する
*infringe :侵害する
*loyalty :忠誠
*exaggerate :誇張する
*ethnic :土着の
*alternately :交互に
*dismiss :後退する
*regardless :関わらず