Ichikawa Monnosuke III and Ichikawa Koisaburô in a mad scene (kyôran)

Image data

• Ichikawa Monnosuke III and Ichikawa Koisaburô in a mad scene (kyôran). Kunisada, Utagawa (Japanese, 1786-1865). Surimono. Colour print from woodblocks with metallic pigment. Shikishiban, left sheet of diptych. Signed: Gototei Kunisada ga. Producer’s seal: Surikô Kozen. Poet: Shiien Momomaro(?). Sealed: Shinsha III. 1823. Ukiyo-e. Notes: One of several surimono printed by Suriko Kozen for spring 1823, all featuring actors who appeared together at the Ichimura theatre in 1822-3. Each print bears a poem in calligraphy by the actors, in this case by the well-known onnagata Ichikawa Monnosuke III (1794-1824) written out at the poet’s request (‘just as I was asked by him’) and sealed with the actor’s poetry name Shinsha III. This is the left sheet of a diptych. The missing right sheet (see photograph) shows the actor Ichikawa Danjûrô VII in the role of a thief with Bandô Zenji playing the comic role of a ‘catfish priest’. Like the priest’s costume, the costume of the young woman played by Monnosuke in this print includes the Go (five) symbol indicating that the poets who commissioned the diptych belonged to the Go poetry group. Monnosuke wears a feathered cloak suggesting that his character is inhabited by the spirit of a fantastic bird. The child actor Koisaburô holds a candle or ‘face-lighter’ (tsura-akari) which extends into the right-hand sheet to illuminate the scene. Such ‘face-lighters’ were held out on a long pole (sashidashi) to highlight actors’ faces when they entered on the hanamichi passageway leading through the audience to the main stage, but they were also used in supernatural scenes to represent a spirit. ‘Madness pieces’ (kyôran mono) derived from a similar class of No plays, and often centred on a female character whose madness was induced by the grief of a lost child or unrequited love.
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