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      INTRODUCTION

      Kawatake Mokuami (1816-1893) was the last great playwright for the kabuki, the popular theater. He is credited with close to four hundred pieces, making him the most prolific writer in the history of the Japanese theater. Even discounting the fact that many of them were adaptations from older plays and that he had numerous disciples during his productive years to help him write the less important scenes, this is a staggering accomplishment. His plays are frequently given today, and The Love of Izayoi and Seishin is one of the most popular.

      Mokuami's real name was Yoshimura Yoshisaburō. He was born in Edo (later Tokyo), where his family had lived for five generations. We know nothing definite about his schooling, but since his father was a pawnbroker, the boy must have been sent to a temple school for a rudimentary education, as he later kept the books. When he was sixteen, Mokuami was hired as a delivery boy by a book dealer. He became familiar with various types of popular literature, including the texts of puppet and kabuki plays, and errands frequently took him backstage into the three licensed kabuki theaters of Edo.

      When Mokuami was eighteen, his father died. As the eldest son, he had to manage the business, but being temperamentally unsuited for it he turned it over to his younger brother. He then drifted about until a dance teacher suggested that he become an apprentice to a playwright, a relative of hers. He took her advice and in 1835 became a disciple of Tsuruya Magotarō (1796-1852). Magotarō, who was not an especially gifted writer, was the adopted grandson of Tsuruya Namboku IV (1755—1829), the outstanding playwright before Mokuami.

      Apprentice playwrights in the Edo period did not begin their training by writing. They were not much more than servants at the beginning. They then moved up to the position of scribe, excerpting and copying the dialogue of each character in a play for the actors assigned the roles, and making final copies of scripts. They were also expected to make preliminary sketches for theater billboards and handbills and to conduct preliminary rehearsals of minor scenes for the playwright, who was responsible for the staging of all his plays. If the apprentice carried out his duties satisfactorily, he was finally given the task of writing a scene under the supervision of the playwright. In 1840, after seven years with Magotarō, Mokuami was assigned an entire act.

      In 1841 the three official theaters were ordered by the government to relocate in the outlying Asakusa district. This was part of a program of curbing extravagance among the townsmen and improving the moral climate. Mokuami became the chief playwright of one of the theaters and took the name of Kawatake Shinshichi II. (The first Shinshichi, who was active toward the end of the eighteenth century, produced little of importance.) In the following ten years, Mokuami did not distinguish himself in any way. This was due in part to the conservative policy of the management which favored the old (and mainly history) plays to original domestic dramas, which were Mokuami's forte. The first original domestic play by Mokuami was produced in 1851. It was an unexpected success, and the delighted management gave him opportunities to write more. But it was not until 1854 that he finally came into his own.

      In that year the actor Ichikawa Kodanji IV (1812-1866) came from Osaka for the season. This was the actor for whom Mokuami wrote his most famous plays, and the association was to last until the actor's death. Kodanji was not of distinguished lineage (pedigree is important in the kabuki). He was unimpressive physically and vocally, and although he had a wide range of roles (leading man, villain, female parts, and could dance), he was not noted for his dramatic ability until he worked with Mokuami, who also profited by the association. He preferred writing original plays involving thieves and other criminals, and in Kodanji he found his ideal interpreter. They collaborated on twenty-six domestic plays and five history plays. Kodanji's death left the Edo theater bereft of its star performer, but waiting in the wings were the young actors who were to become the leading figures in the kabuki of the Meiji era: Ichikawa Danjūrō IX (1838-1903), Onoe Kikugorō V (1844-1903), and Ichikawa Sadanji (18421904). Mokuami was to write for all of them.

      The Tokugawa shogunate came to a turbulent end when Mokuami was in his prime. But because the kabuki was shackled by the regulation which prohibited depiction of any person or event of the Tokugawa period, almost none of the momentous events and changes confronting the nation was reflected in the traditional theater. It was left to the new drama from 1880 to come to grips with important political and social problems.

      This is not to say that some minor internal reforms and external physical changes did not affect the kabuki. Theaters were built along western architectural lines; box-offices replaced theater teahouses as purveyors of tickets; and gaslight was installed. Writers from outside infiltrated the kabuki with cries for reform. They had returned from abroad and were eager to remodel the kabuki in the western image. They advocated elimination of the erotic and vulgar,

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