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More mundanely, the Shochiku company owns the Kabuki costumes which are rented to the actors, but according to Yoko Tahara, long-time Japanese artistic connoisseur, it also was one of Japan’s earliest motion picture companies.

The ensemble, largely Nakamura by name, needed a hanamichi or flower walk, to be constructed on the left of Zellerbach’s lower orchestra. Without a Western orchestra two or three rows were added near the apron for those payinig $125 to witness two plays entering the Kabuki repertoire from older, different theatrical styles, kyogen in the instance of Boshibari and bunraku puppet theatre in Chikamatsu’s Sonsezaki Shinju, The Love Suicides at Sonezaki.

This kyogen has been massaged into a greater dance vehicle, though relying on the tale of two servants whom their master ties up while he departs on a journey hoping confinement will deter them from his sake supply. One, Kirokaja (Nakamura Kanjaku V) was inveigled to demonstrate his fighting skill using a pole; his hands get tied at each end. The other servant, Tarokaja (Nakamura Kikaku II) after laughing and saying he would prefer his hands tied behind his back, gets his wish. The master, Sone Masubei (Arashi Kitsusaburo VI), a samurai in formal kamishimo garments, where the trousers, or naga-hakama, float easily two or three feet on the floor, leaves the men to their own devices. Its style is one of the more conspicuous consumption attires extant, given the wear and tear where feet and fabric meet. With an apparent ikat textile pattern, Sone Masubei’s attire announced affluence. The servants’ costumes were an amazing blend of circular patterns on green and brown culotte-like hakamas, plaids in the kimono and special designs on the kataginu. Throughout the comedy the musicians sat behind on three levels, samisens and drums on the ready. The stage attendants, traditionally garbed in black, appeared here in kimono and hakama, faces visible to the audience primarily in profile.

Naturally Kirokaja and Tarokaja managed to open the door to the sake storeroom, and devised a way to drink using Tarokaja’s sake cup which Kirokaja dips into a sake barrel. First Tarokaja drinks from Kirokaja’s outstretched hand and then he enjoys the rice beverage in the cup held in Tarokaja’s bound hands. They require each other to dance, after Kirokaja employed the lid to provide an abundant sake sample. Intoxicated they dance, the sake creating droll accents to sung descriptions of women, imbalances and stumbles making momentary sculpture in space. Tarokaja’s physique, slender and agile, enabled multiple turns, jumps, feints, and one punishing plop to yoga position; Kanjuko’s Kirokajo was full of accented turns, befuddled pauses, drunken smirks and an occasional low-keyed, short-term mie. I felt I was examing an Edo period wood block print. Drum and samisen punctuated suncopated accents, guiding the lurches and leanings, an aural study added to the visual inebriation, a visual sensory equivalent to popping sushi in the mouth.
 

When Sone Masubei returned and threatened Kirokajo with beating, the latter tilted his pole in to remind his master of his skill in self-defense. Cold sober and thwarted Sone Masubei, joined his inebriated retainers in a lurching dance.

No bows were taken to acknowledge the appreciative applause.

Sonezaki Shinju is classifed as a sewamono, a play about commoners; created in 1703, it was the first sewamono written for the Bunraku Puppet Theater in Osaka. It established Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s reputation as a playright. He moved to Osaka in 1709, spending the last years of his life writing plays for the Bunraku.

Tokubei (Nakamura Kanjaku V), a 25-year-old clerk to his uncle and foster father, and the 19-year-old courtesan Ohatsu (Nakamura Ganjuro III) are lovers. Kyuemon, the uncle, had arranged a marriage between his daughter and Tokubei; he refused it and the handsome dowry because of his love for Ohatsu. Tokubei’s step mother took the money and Tokubei had to shame her in the village to get him to return the money. Tokubei then lent the sum to a friend, Kuheiji (Nakamura Kikaku II), who denied the loan, saying the contract was forged with a stolen seal. Kuheiji and his cronies beat and humiliated Tokubei. Tokubei saw no resolution except suicide.

At the tea house where Ohatsu practiced her arts, the uncle Kyuemon arrived; she persuaded him to come inside to await Tokubei’s arrival. She is summoned inside by the proprietor, but managed to cover Tokubei with her flowing kimono so he could crouch in the space between the garden and the platform of the house. Ohatsu draped her cloak over to cover him. Kuheiji arrived with his cronies and boasts about the deception. Ohatsu, who smoked a slender pipe, managed to restrain Tokubei from bursting angrily from his hiding place. Ohatsu mused aloud about the necessity of Tokubei to commit suicide to protect his reputation and that she was prepared to join him because she cannot bear the thought of existence without him. Kuheji goes inside with his cronies, and the proprietor closed the teahouse for the night. Ohatsu sneaked out and is joined by Tokubei after a scene of lightless confusion.

Kuheiji’s clerk Mohei arrived, telling his boss he lent the magistrate Kuheiji’s seal thereby making the document legal. As Kuheiji is about to beat Mohei, Kyuemon emerged from the back room; having heard the entire exposition, he forced the teahouse proprietor and Kuheiji’s cronies to listen to the exposure. The servant, sent to fetch Ohatsu, found only the suicide note.

In the final scene Ohatsu and Tokubei have arrived at the woods of Sonezaki where they will commit suicide at dawn. In elegaic tones of happiness and expressions of vows as a married couple in the after life, they look with final fondness at the landscape, the stars and each other. After the bells struck seven, Tokubei killed Ohatsu and then himself.

This narration reveals nothing of the artistry unfolded before us. Though moments required stillness from the supporting actors, it was clear from the body language that every last actor’s body was trained to dance; an impulse carried its sinuous signal through the entire body. Spatial qualities did derive from the ritual politeness of Japanese social code, but its usage and timing was dance in quality; not an unfocused gesture, however apparently trivial, was seen in the entire play.

There were touching moments between the two lovers; when they flirted at the Ikutama Shrine, before Tokubei’s confrontation with Kuheiji. In the Temmaya Teahouse, Ohatsu sat at the edge of the platform which presumably overlooked an enclosed pond and garden. Draped decoratively, she converses, her back to Kuheiji who has burst into the teahouse with his cronies, his actions intent on supplanting Tokubei in Ohatsu’s affection. His cocksure manner and sly sideways glances clearly indicated his intentions, verified later when he started to climb up to Ohatsu’s quarters only to be interrupted by his clerk.. In seeming casual conversation with Kuheiji, Ohatsu asks Tokubei, using her foot as a vehicle, whether his intention is suicide; after he stroked it in the affirmative, Ohatsu remarked she has no desire to live without him. Tokubei’s love-making to her foot had to be one of the more extraordinary moments in theatrical star-crossed lovers. The ebb, flow and confusion as they grope their way out of the tea-house to wend their way to Sonzaki was a tumble of released adrenalin, confusion and togetherness, growing more poetic when the scene shifted to the woods. There the lovers’ elegy became transcendent, each movement of their bodies reflecting resolution and finality. When the fateful moments arrived,there was trembling. The suicides were accomplished so the audience saw only Ohatsu slowly slumping in Tokubei’s arms as he gazed on her in his own ebbing strength, their deathly union a sculpture worthy of Auguste Rodin.

There was nothing to suggest Nakamura Ganjuro III was 73 or that Nakamura Kanjuku V was around 50 and the son of Ganjuro III. We saw only surpassing professionals inhabiting roles and rendering them with restraint, extraordinary skill and utmost simplicity. Ganjuro alone acknowledged the prolonged standing ovation.