Ichikawa Ebizo as Pirate Kezori Kuemon
This is just one example of ukiyo-e depicting actors from the Kabuki. Here Ebizo plays a character from Love at Sea. This kabuki was based on a 1717 puppet play.
The story is about Soshichi, who is traveling to Hakata to meet his courtesan mistress. Soshichi is a merchant who accidentally witnesses a contraband transfer from the Chinese and Dutch to the Japanese. This happens aboard Kezori Kuemon's pirate ship.
Kuemon has Soshichi thrown overboard to eliminate a witness, but somehow Soshichi survives and meets his mistress. When he meets Kuemon again, Kuemon is so amazed at his survival that he offers to buy freedom for Soshichi and his mistress.
The catch is that Soshichi must join the pirate gang as part of the deal. Soon after the new pirate Soshichi is arrested and commits suicide. So much for happy endings.
Memorial portrait for Nakamura Utaemon
This portrait is a shina-e, or death memorial picture. These were made almost exclusively during the 1800's when a kabuki actor died.
Like other shina-e from 1840-1860, this one is unsigned and has no censor's seal. The art is attributed to Kuniyoshi -- the available prints and documentation support this.
Many of the shina-e use the grey and blue as somber colors, and often the pictures have biographical information. Nakamura is shown in one of his last roles played before his death.
He played a monk, thus the robes and shaved head.
Iwai Shijaku As Inuzaka Keno Tonetomo
Inuzaka Keno Tonetomo is the seventh "dog hero" in the Japanese novel, Biography of the Eight Dogs. In the story, Kabuki actor Iwai Shijaku rescues Kobungo, another dog hero of the novel. Iwai dresses up like Asakeno, a dance-girl. When Asakeno returns to Kobungo with the severed head of their captor-enemy Tsunetake, Kobungo realizes Asakeno is just a disguise for Tonetomo.
Male Kabuki actors commonly dressed as women - since before 1650 there were no women actors. Since 1650 only adults were allowed as actors, so grown men had to play all parts. Iwai was one of the onnagata, actors who specialize in playing female roles. It was said that even if women could become actors, there would be no need, as they would be indistinguishable from the onnagata.
Having noted elsewhere that ukiyo-e had been considered less that socially acceptable because of its association with kabuki. Early in its development kabuku theater was also on the fringes - this is directly traced to the first three shoguns of the new Tokugawa shogunate after 1600. Originally, the actors in kabuki were almost exclusively women - and not the most honest types, either! There was little line between the offstage activities of the prostitutes who also performed lewdly onstage.
Women were banned from kabuki in the first attempt to stem the problem and make kabuki more respectable. This did little to solve the problem, because the boys who took the women's places behaved very similarly to the women. This was encouraged by the third shogun, due to his "fondness" for these young boy actors.
After his death, around 1650, Kabuki went man-only. Much ukiyo-e was based on Kabuki, in ALL its forms. Some of the material is not fit for all audiences and therefore will not be posted on the site.
Ichikawa Kodanji as Ghost of Sakura Sogoro
This oban-format ghost print is one of Kuniyoshi's best. The actor Kodanji is playing Sakura Sogoro, the ghost of the slain village head from Iwahashi.
Sakura led a group of village leaders who tried to subvert the chain of command. Their daimyo, lord Hotta Kozuke, was taxing them beyond their ability to pay. Their pleas went unheeded, so they decided to take their complaint directly to the shogunate in Edo.
As with any heirchical organziation based on force, the shogun ignored them told Kozuke that he had problems at home. Kozuke killed Sogoro by crucification, and only after killing his three sons and wife first.
Thus promoted to ghost status, Sogoro haunted Kozuke's castle, eventually killing the daimyo's wife and son from fright -- the daimyo himself went crazy in the end.
The image is seclected from the kabuki play The Story of Sakura of Higashima. The play was staged at the Nakamuraza theater in Edo. The play ran for three months in 1851; although it described a real political situation, the names were changed to protect the producers and author.