Hyoryukidan seiyo kabuki

――A Turining point of the Modernization of Kabuki――

Abstract

Hyryukidan seiyo kabuki (漂流奇譚西洋劇The Strange Story of the Castaways: A Play in the Western-style) was written by Mokuami, and produced in 1879 at the Shintomi-za theater in Tokyo, featuring Ichikawa Danjuro IX and other kabuki actors. It is the story of young Japanese men, who, while on a sea journey, are shipwrecked. Fortunately, they are rescued by an American ship and then travel on to America, England and France. While in Paris, they attend a performance of an operetta. The Western actors used in this original 1879 production happened to be on tour at the Gaiety Theatre in Yokohama at the time. The producer who employed them, Morita Kan'ya, was a great enthusiast of Western theatre.

In the history of the modern Japanese theatre, this production has been underestimated and badly neglected. Recently, however, the present writer found four esquisses for the stage pictures of this production by Kawanabe Kyosai and rough sketches for them by Mokuami, and, through the examination of the significances of these sketches, realized that this production was an epochmaking event in the history of modern kabuki, for it clearly attempted to create a new type of a Western styled (i. e. realistic) play. The failure seems to have been almost entirely due to the operetta performed by Western actors, which was totally incomprehensible and strange to the Japanese audience of the time.