Igami no Gonta and Other Theater Reviews

A towel slips from a shoulder, a stolen bundle changes hands, a sword remains in a wound, and a father struggles to conceal the sacrifice of his own family. In his account of Kikugorō’s Igami no Gonta, Miki Takeji records the precise actions through which a familiar kabuki role becomes a performance worthy of scrutiny.

Two further reviews follow Tokyo theater in 1896. Takeji compares the great gate scene at the Miyakoza and Meijiza, examines the emotional demands of the Temple School, objects to a real monkey’s intrusion into a scene of grief, and measures other critics’ claims against what he saw. His later Meijiza review moves from historical spectacle and a rain prayer to the devastating, comic, and finely controlled drunkenness of the fish dealer Sōgorō.

These three complete reviews preserve plot summaries, costumes, dialogue cues, stage movements, viewing dates, and forceful judgments. Forty-six notes explain theatrical terms, actor names, historical references, and textual difficulties. The result offers a close encounter with kabuki performance and criticism at the end of the nineteenth century.