Play title Tkaid Yotsuya Kaidan

Author Tsuruya Namboku IV

History The ghost play "Tkaid Yotsuya Kaidan" was staged for the
first time in July 1825 at the Nakamuraza [casting]. It was a
nibanme drama for the classic "Kanadehon Chshingura".
Usually the ichibanme drama was staged in its entirety, then
the nibanme was staged in turn. For the first production of
"Kanadehon Chshingura"/"Tkaid Yotsuya Kaidan" it was
decided to interweave the 2 dramas, with a full staging on
two days: the first day started with "Kanadehon
Chshingura" from Act I to Act VI, followed by "Tkaid
Yotsuya Kaidan" from Act I to Act III (the Onb canal
scene). The following day started with the the Onb canal
scene, followed by "Kanadehon Chshingura" from Act VII to
act XI, then came Act IV and Act V of "Tkaid Yotsuya
Kaidan" to conclude the program.
Structure The original version of "Tkaid Yotsuya Kaidan" was made
up of 5 acts divided in 11 scenes. Nowadays it is made up of
5 acts roughly divided in 14 scenes:
Act Scene In Japanese In English

I 1 ! In the precincts of the Kannon pavilion in Asakusa

2 ! Takuetsu's hell inn

3 ! In front of the Jiz in the back of the Kannon pavilion

4 ! The paddy field in the back of the Kannon pavilion

II 1 ! At Iemon's home in Yotsuya

2 ! At It Kihei's home

3 ! Back at Iemon's home

III 1 ! The Onb canal in Sunamura

IV 1 ! At the Misumi house in Fukagawa

2 ! The refuge of the Oshioda family

V 1 ! The dream
 2 ! The Snake Mountain Hermitage

3 ! Outside the Hermitage

4 ! The revenge
You need a Japanese Language Kit installed within your system in order to be able to read the characters

A standard performance of "Tkaid Yotsuya Kaidan"

includes act I, act II, act III and the Snake Mountain
Hermitage scenes of act V.
Key words Kizewamono
Kaidanmono
Kamisuki
Toitagaeshi
Summary In Act 1 Tamiya Iemon, a rnin (masterless samurai) has a
violent argument with Yotsuya Samon, his father-in-law,
who urges him to separate from Oiwa. Soon afterwards
Iemon kills Samon. Naosuke, a hawker of medicine lusts for
Osode, the sister of Oiwa and the wife of Sat Yomoshichi.
Yomoshichi is in disguise as a hawker of haberdashery
because he is a member of a group pursuing a vendetta to
avenge the death of his master. Naosuke discovers Osode in
a brothel run by Takuetsu but is interrupted in his wooing by
Yomoshichi. Unable to pay the fee demanded by Takuetsu,
he is driven out of the brothel and also suffers the derision of
Yomoshichi and Osode. At the same time that Iemon
commits his foul deed Naosuke kills Okuda Shzabur, his
former master, whom he mistakes for Yomoshichi. Iemon
and Naosuke then deceive Oiwa and Osode into believing
that they will avenge the deaths. Iemon reunites with Oiwa,
and Naosuke enters into a common-law marriage with Osode
as the price of their agreement to the vendetta.

Act 2 opens with Iemon, miserable in his marriage to Oiwa.

Oume, the granddaughter of It Kihei, is lovelorn for him.
The It family disfigures Oiwa with a poison, in the guise of
medicine, in order to sway Iemon to abandon Oiwa for
marriage to Oume. The stratagem bears immediate fruit.
Iemon coerces Takuetsu, by now his servant, to rape Oiwa
so that Iemon will have grounds for divorce. Takuetsu
cannot bring himself to rape and, instead, forces Oiwa to
peer at herself in a mirror. Oiwa realises that the It family
has deceived her. In the famous kamisuki (haircombing)
scene Oiwa attempts to make herself presentable for a visit
to the It mansion. As she combs, the hair comes away in
her hand in clumps and blood drips from the strands to the
ground. Takuetsu obstructs her departure and Oiwa
accidentally cuts her throat with a sword. Oiwa dies cursing
Iemon. In the third plot Kobotoke Kohei, the former servant
of Iemon, steals the traditional medicine of the Tamiya
family from his master. Iemon catches Kohei and murders
him. Then he orders his cronies to nail the bodies of Oiwa
and Kohei to the opposite sides of a door and to throw the
door into a river. The motive is to link Oiwa and Kohei as
lovers. At the close of Act 2 Iemon kills Oume and It on the
night of the wedding due to tricks by the ghosts of Oiwa and
Kohei.

In Act 3 the remaining members of the It household are

annihilated. Iemon kicks Oyumi, the mother of Oume, into
the Onb Canal and Omaki, the servant of Oyumi drowns by
accident. Naosuke arrives in disguise as Gonbei, an eel
vendor, and blackmails Iemon into handing over a valuable
document. Iemon contemplates his prospects while fishing at
the Onb canal*. Just as he is about to depart, the door
bearing the corpses of Oiwa and Kohei drifts towards the
bank of the canal. Iemon hooks the door to the
embankment. In the now famous toitagaeshi ("door
transformation") scene the corpses briefly come to life and
reproach Iemon. The act concludes with a danmari
("pantomime"). On the embankment above the canal Iemon,
Yomoshichi and Naosuke appear to fumble as they struggle
for possession of a note which passes from hand to hand in
the darkness. The note relates to the vendetta.

At the commencement of Act 4, Osode is selling incense and

aniseed at the entrance to the Asakusa shrine. She is also
taking in washing for a living. Naosuke watches while Osode
washes the clothes. Suddenly, a pair of ghostly hands
emerges from a washing bucket in front of him. This
foreshadows the surprises in store. Naosuke applies
considerable pressure to Osode to consummate their
marriage and, immediately following their nureba
("passionate love scene"), Yomoshichi appears and berates
Osode for adultery. Osode resigns herself to death in
atonement and deceives Naosuke and Yomoshichi into
mortally wounding her. She leaves a farewell note from
 which Naosuke learns that Osode was, in fact, his own
younger sister. He also learns that he has killed his own
former master instead of Yomoshichi. Naosuke finishes off
Osode and then commits suicide to discharge his guilt. In a
separate story the ghost of Kohei prevents the crippled
Oshioda Matanoj from committing suicide. Matanoj is a
member of the vendetta group. The ghost then gives
Matanoj the medicine which he has stolen for a second time
from Iemon and effects a miraculous cure. This action
enables the ghost of Kohei to attain rebirth in the Buddhist
paradise.

The play concludes with Iemon taking refuge at Snake

Mountain Hermitage from the ghost of Oiwa. Act 5, scene 1
is commonly referred to as the yumeba ("dream scene")
because Iemon dreams of a time when he is once more a
samurai. He encounters a young and beautiful maiden in a
summer pavilion during a hunting trip and, immediately, falls
in love. Iemon fails to recognise that the maiden is Oiwa. He
dismisses his companion, Chbei, in order to embark on a
nureba. A short time later Chbei returns and approaches
the pavilion. He peeks through the blind and sees a hideous
face; that of the ghost of Oiwa. Also, the squash on the
vines which cover the pavilion transform into her visage.
Chbei flees and the ghost of Oiwa seizes Iemon and drags
him down to hell. In Act 5 scene 2 Jnen, the master of
Snake Mountain Hermitage, has given sanctuary to Iemon
who is on the verge of madness. Jnen and his followers
pray for Iemon with spectacular lack of success. First Oiwa
kills Chbei, and then both of the natural parents of Iemon:
Okuma and Genshir. In despair Iemon flees the hermitage
into a driving snowstorm. He literally runs into the arms of
his living nemesis, Yomoshichi, who cuts him down.

Text written by Paul Kennelly, courtesy of the Sydney Society of Literature and Aesthetics

Link to the full article, available in the proceeds of the Pacific

Rim Conference in Transcultural Aesthetics (June 18~20,
1997)

(*) The term Onb refers to grave-keepers and cremators. It seems likely that Namboku
chose this as a name to convey the gloom of a crematorium.

Comments During the oppressive, steamy heat of Tky's summer,

Kankur staged the famous and gruesome "Yotsuya Kaidan"
at the Kabukiza. Guaranteed to give anyone the chills, the
story is replete with murders, ghosts and sadistic cruelty.
The villain of the piece, Iemon, was played with nasty relish
by Hashinosuke. Another three roles were played by
Kankur, who did a number of quick changes and flew over
roofs on wires as a vengeful ghost. Again, Kankur was able
to show off his forte-playing a character who has gone
insane from heartbreak, tragedy and jealousy. When
Kankur staged this play at Shibuya's Cocoon Theater, he
also used real water for a scene in which ghosts rise up out
of a river. The Kabukiza's version just used the old technique
of blue floor sheets and pits in the stage floor, but it was still
effective.

An unusual feature of this play is the role of the stage guard,

who comes out between the last two acts, fills in the missing
parts of the story and clarifies who is playing what role and
what relationship they have with each other. In the Edo
period there was a real stage guard on duty in the theater to
break up disputes between patrons. This time, Band Kichiya
took the role and told the audience in hushed tones: "The
story is based on a true incident and it is said that the spirit
of Oiwa is present somewhere in the auditorium every time
the play is produced-maybe sitting behind you right now," to
a response of some nervous giggles. It is also true that the
actor playing Oiwa takes the precaution of paying a visit to
the shrine to pay his respects, just to make sure that he
doesn't encounter any trouble while performing the role.

The first act establishes Iemon, an umbrella maker by trade,

as the cold-blooded murderer of his father-in-law. Then the
central part of the story opens in Iemon's house, where his
contented wife, Oiwa (Kankur), has just given birth to a
child, but this idyllic scene is not fated to last long. Oume,
the neighbor's daughter has fallen in love with the handsome
Iemon, and with her grandfather plots to turn him against
his wife and toward her. The pair send Oiwa various gifts as
well as a medicine that will grossly disfigure her.

Meanwhile Iemon has gone to thank them, and although he

wonders at their motives. They confess to having sent Oiwa
the laced medicine, and threaten to kill themselves unless
Iemon agrees to divorcing his wife and marrying Oume
instead. Easily persuaded to act as they suggest, the
opportunistic Iemon returns home and proceeds to grossly
mistreat his hideously disfigured wife, even stripping her and
the baby of their outer kimonos and grabbing the mosquito
net to pawn, in order to try and force her to leave him. An
old servant, Kohei, tries to dissuade him, but after having his
fingers broken and hair ripped out, he is tied up and locked
in a cupboard for his efforts.

Now the trouble escalates from one tragedy to the next.

Iemon leaves, telling another servant to make a pass at
Oiwa so that he can accuse her of adultery and get rid of her
for good, Reluctantly the servant tries but Oiwa resists and
in the ensuing scuffle, she draws a sword and falls against it.
The servant flees, but on Iemon's return, rather than being
devastated by guilt, he turns on Kohei, the old servant still
locked in the cupboard, who had been the only witness to
the earlier ill-treatment, and murders him. He then takes the
two corpses, and has some of his cronies nail them to a door
which is then dumped in the local river.

Back at Iemon's house preparations are made for the

wedding. His new bride arrives in her wedding clothes and
with her face covered, but when he removes the silk hood
from her face, he sees not Oume's face but Oiwa's and
slashes her with his sword. Only then does he realize he has
killed his new wife. Turning round he runs into what he
thinks is the ghost of the servant Kohei and thrusts at him
with his sword, but in fact the victim turns out to be his new
father-in-law.

In the final act, Iemon is wandering trance-like along the

banks of the river when from the water rises a plank with
Oiwa's body tied to it. When she calls out to Iemon, he
pushes it back under the water, only to find it rising again
with Kohei's body on it, crying out to his former master.
Unable to stand it any longer, Iemon throws himself into the
river.

On leaving the theater, the night certainly seemed colder

and more menacing than usual.

Courtesy of Jean Wilson, review of the performance of "Tkaid Yotsuya Kaidan", which
was produced at the Kabukiza in August 2000
 The actors Band Hikosabur V and Kataoka Nizaemon VIII playing the roles of the ghost of
Oiwa and Tamiya Iemon in the Snake Mountain Hermitage scene of the drama "Tkaid
Yotsuya Kaidan", which was staged in July 1861 at the Nakamuraza (print made by Utagawa
Toyokuni III)

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