It is time to focus on one of the great historical plays (jidaimono) adapted to kabuki from the bunraku puppet theatre, the Kinkaku-ji scene from the 1758 drama Gion Sairei Shinkōki ("The Gion Festival Chronicle of Faith"), originally premiered at the Toyotake-za in Osaka in the 12th month of 1757, and first performed in kabuki the next month, in two different theatres in Kyoto, the Minamigawa no Shibai and at the Kitagawa no Shibai. The playwrights behind the full play were Nakamura Akei, Asada Itchō, Toyotake Ōritsu, Mitsu Nomiko and Kokuzō Su.
The cast for the performance used for this video includes Nakamura Jakuemon V (Princess Yuki), Matsumoto Hakuō II (Daizen), Kataoka Nizaemon XV (Tōkichi), Nakamura Baigoku IV (Naonobu) and Nakamura Karoku V (Gunpei).
The main sources for this video were the original script, published in the fourth volume of "Meisaku Kabuki Zenshū", Alan Cummings' English translation in the first volume of "Kabuki Plays On Stage", and Paul Griffith's commentary on the thirty-third volume of the "Masterpieces of Kabuki Theatre Series".
For an in-depth discussion of the acting for Princess Yuki, the best source as far as I know is Tamotsu Watanabe's book "Kabuki Kata no Shinzui". Some time ago I put together some of the main ideas in a video ( • Kinkaku-ji: Yukihime [... ) which I hope to redo better at some point.
Special thanks to the Patreon members who make these videos possible, including C. H. White, Eric Pan, SuperGingernutz, calvin, Valerie, L Jay H, Tina Draughon, Faith, Kieran Byfield, Jonatan Alvarado and Adrian Smetsers!
You can also support Kabuki In-Depth on Patreon:
/ kabukiindepth
10 сен 2024
