No. 114, June 2000

Selections from the NDL Collection
Nakamuraza Naigai no Zu (in Sanshibai no Zu)

Contents:

Kabuki is a Japanese traditional performing art with its origins in the Edo period. 
Kabuki plays feature historical events, love, murder, vendetta and the like with music and dance. Although in the early years, both men and women acted in Kabuki plays, soon the Tokugawa Shogunate forbade woman to appear on the stage on the ground of immorality. Since then all roles have been played by men. 

The Nakamuraza is a famous Kabuki theater in the Edo period (1603-1867). 
Since 1714, the number of officially licensed Kabuki theaters in Edo (now Tokyo) was limited to three: Nakamuraza, Ichimuraza and Moritaza. The Nakamuraza was located in Sakaicho in downtown Edo. 

"Nakamuraza naigai no zu" is composed of six pictures. 1, 2, 3 show the interior of the Nakamuraza theater, and 4, 5, 6 are the façade. On the stage, actors are playing "Soga no Taimen (The confrontation of the Soga Brothers and Kudo Suketsune)" 

Click on the number to go to the large picture, or click here for the whole composition.

1. Balconies and the Hanamichi. The Hanamichi is a narrow runway extending through the audience at right angles to the right of the stage. Actors use it to enter and exit to and from the main stage, and it serves as a secondary stage. From the "Hanamichi" the Soga Brothers confront Kudo Suketsune on the main stage. Kudo is the man who killed their father.
2. Main stage. The two characters on the poster upper left read "House Full"
3. The balconies and the pit.
4. Crowd.
5. Yagura (small tower) erected on the roof indicates the special status of the officially approved three theaters. A curtain patterned with gingko leaves, emblem of the Nakamuraza, surrounds the Yagura.
6. Kido Geisha, the men wearing red hoods on the stand, call people into the theater imitating the voices of popular actors.