Sukeroku

Mannequin of Ichikawa Danjûrô XII as Sukeroku, at the Edo-Tokyo Museum.

• Premiere: 1713, Yamamura-za
• Playwrights:
• Japanese: 助六由縁江戸桜 (Sukeroku Yukari no Edo-zakura)

Sukeroku is among the most popular and famous of kabuki plays. Closely associated with the Ichikawa Danjûrô line of actors, it is counted among the Kabuki Jûhachiban.

The story centers on Sukeroku, a samurai and otokodate, a prominent patron of the Yoshiwara, and especially of Agemaki, the top courtesan of the Miura-ya teahouse. Drawing upon elements of the classic Soga Monogatari, Sukeroku is later revealed to be Soga Gorô in disguise, working to seek out his father's killer and avenge his father's death.

The play is well-known for a number of iconic elements, including Sukeroku's purple headband, bullseye-pattern umbrella, and distinctive kumadori (face makeup) pattern. After the hero of Shibaraku, Sukeroku might be among the most recognizable characters in kabuki.

Characters

Mannequin as Agemaki in display of the play's costumes, set, and props at the Edo-Tokyo Museum.

• Sukeroku - a samurai, frequent patron of the Yoshiwara, especially of Agemaki of the Miura-ya, and a street tough, who often starts fights on the streets of the pleasure quarters. Secretly Soga Gorô
• Agemaki - the top courtesan of the Miura-ya, famous and popular throughout the district; she is known to be especially close to Sukeroku, but Ikyû has his eyes on her as well
• Ikyû - an older, bearded samurai who seeks to steal Agemaki away from Sukeroku
• Manko - Sukeroku's mother, disguised as a samurai
• Shinbei - Sukeroku's brother, secretly Soga Jûrô
• Kanpera Monbei - retainer to Ikyû

Plot Summary

Sukeroku enters on the hanamichi, swaggering jauntily and showily in wooden geta, performing a type of step, or walk, called tanzen roppô. He has one arm tucked inside his kimono, his umbrella over his shoulder, a purple headband tied to one side, the ends dangling down the right side of his face. He stops at shichi-san, and performs a number of poses and gestures meant to display his bravado, style, and charm. In total, his walk down the hanamichi and dance at shichi-san takes about fifteen minutes, and is one of the chief highlights of the play, an opportunity for the star actor to show off, and for the audience to enjoy watching the star perform these dramatic poses, prideful walk, and charming character.

Sukeroku forces passersby to crawl between his legs, in a famous example of improvisation, or sutezerifu in kabuki. While many plays include short sections where one or two lines might be improvised, this entire section is left open for improvisation, which often includes contemporary references. For example, in one performance in 2008, the characters performed, briefly, a gag "sonna no kankei nai ("it's got nothing to do with that!") popularized around 2007-08 by comedian Kojima Yoshio.

Ichikawa Danjûrô VIII was quite idolized in his time, and when he performed this play, bottles of water from the vat he stepped in would later be sold to adoring fans.

History and Style

Though the plot of Sukeroku is largely fiction, some sources indicate that the characters, and plot, may have been inspired by reality. There may have been a Kyoto- or Osaka-based merchant named Sukeroku in the 1630s who was associated with a courtesan of the Kyoto Shimabara named Agemaki. Some accounts have it that Agemaki became a nun after her affair with Sukeroku, while others tell of a double suicide.

In any case, though the kabuki play as it is known today did not debut until 1713, the characters of Sukeroku and Agemaki appeared on the bunraku stage as early as 1678. Kamigata (Kansai) kabuki theatres soon afterward began to stage productions featuring the couple in love suicide stories, including Sennichi-dera Shinjû ("Love Suicide at Sennichi Temple") and Kyô Sukeroku Shinjû ("Kyoto Sukeroku Love Suicide").

The play as it is known today - the Edo Kabuki version associated with the Ichikawa family - was first developed by Ichikawa Danjûrô II, who witnessed performances of these Kamigata plays while touring in that part of the country, and who then brought it back to Edo, debuting his version in 1713.

Whereas in the Kamigata plays Sukeroku was often a merchant, Danjûrô made him a samurai, giving him a black kimono, red-yellow headband, and a pattern of black face makeup (today, chiefly red on a white foundation). Danjûrô, 26 years old at the time, performed the role in the distinctive aragoto fashion pioneered by his father. Danjûrô also added a number of characters who are now standard elements of the plot, including the fool Monbei, Sukeroku's brother Shinbei (secretly Soga Jûrô), their mother Manko, and the villain Ikyû, many of whom were based on real figures. Shinbei and the Noodle Vendor served initially as onstage advertisements for specific neighborhood merchants, as was a common practice in kabuki at the time, Shinbei being a reference to the asagao senbei ("Morning Glory Rice Crackers") sold by Fujiya Seizaemon. The noodle vendor, similarly, was introduced by Danjûrô III and named Ichikawa-ya, after an actual local noodle vendor; when the real-life noodle shop changed its name to Fukuyama, Danjûrô VII changed the character's name to Fukuyama as well. Ikyû, meanwhile, was based on the gangster Fukami Jûzaemon, also known as "Bearded Jikyû," who had in 1713 or so, at the time Danjûrô II was first adapting the story, recently returned from exile and who was thus a topic of conversation.

The close ties between the theatre and the broader community extended beyond such onstage references to real merchants. The play would often be performed with the hanamichi lined with real, blooming cherry trees donated to the theatre by the teahouses of the Yoshiwara, and actors playing the lead roles would often pay a visit to the Yoshiwara and offer gifts to the teahouses, receiving in exchange umbrellas, kiseru, lanterns, and other objects for use onstage and for distribution or sale to audience members following the production. The actors' visit was a fairly major affair involving a procession of many actors, and involved various traditions or rituals performed as part of the visit and of the offering of gifts; courtesans and others directly associated with the teahouses would also attend the performances at the kabuki theatres, and performed various customs even as audience members. When the actor playing Sukeroku addressed the audience as himself (the actor) in the role of the stage manager, the courtesans would clap along with him. This addressing of the audience, incidentally, is not unique to Sukeroku, but the play is distinctive in incorporating more improvisation, and more elements of the actor shedding the character and being himself, the actor, for certain parts of the performance.

In his second performance of the play, three years later, Danjûrô played Sukeroku in a somewhat gentler manner, incorporating elements of the Kamigata wagoto style in his performance. This was the first time that wagoto and aragoto elements were combined in the same character. Danjûrô also introduced at this time other elements which would later become quite standard, and even iconic. It was during this performance that he first wore a purple headband and carried as bullseye-patterned umbrella, today two of the most iconic props or costume elements in kabuki. Purple dye was among the most expensive of colors, and had previously been restricted almost exclusively to shogunal use.

The following year (1765), the Morita-za debuted a dance drama version of the story which focused more heavily on Agemaki's kamuro (child attendants).

Sukeroku is quite unique, as well, in its use of the katôbushi style of musical accompaniment. While it is quite typical in kabuki for a combination of different styles of shamisen and chanting, such as kiyomoto and nagauta, to be used within a single play (often switching between styles numerous times within a single scene), Sukeroku is the only play in the current repertoire to make use of katôbushi music (which it employs alongside kiyomoto and nagauta). Due in large part to the unique traditions of the katôbushi style, which employs amateur performers alongside professionals, Sukeroku is the only play in which amateur performers appear on stage having been granted professional status just for the duration of the performance; it is also one of the only plays in which female musicians perform onstage, and the only play in which an actor onstage formally requests the musicians to play. During the Edo period, katôbushi was especially popular in the Yoshiwara, even after its popularity in the theatre world waned. As part of the close ties between the theatres and the pleasure districts, katôbushi musicians from the Yoshiwara (i.e. not performers professionally associated with the kabuki theatres) were often invited to perform onstage in productions of Sukeroku. This was a great honor, and source of pleasure for the musicians offered this rare opportunity. Unlike in most plays, where the musicians perform behind a kuromisu screen in one corner or end of the stage, in Sukeroku, they are more fully and more centrally onstage, albeit still hidden behind a screen. This helps simulate, or recall, the idea of courtesans on display in the front windows of teahouses, allows these amateur musicians to more easily see Sukeroku's grand hanamichi entrance that is a highlight of the play, and grants them more fully the honor and pleasure of being "on stage" for the performance.

The Ichikawa family secured its control over the play in 1832, and some histories trace the current version of the play back to this year, rather than to any earlier date. As the play is extremely popular, other families have developed their own versions, such as Sukeroku Kuruwa no Momoyogusa performed by the Onoe Kikugorô line of actors. However, only the Ichikawa family uses the title Sukeroku Yukari Edo Zakura, and various stylistic elements only appear in this version of the play.

References

• Blumner, Holly, Julie Iezzi, Alice Luhrmann, and Kathy Welch (eds.). 101 Years of Kabuki in Hawai'i. Honolulu: University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1994.
• Brandon, James, William Malm, and Donald Shively (eds.). Studies in Kabuki. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1978.