The Precious Incense and Autumn Flowers of Sendai

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The Precious Incense and Autumn Flowers of Sendai

April 1777, Osaka

Narrator-driven plays, in which a narrator is featured on stage, were usually written first for the Bunraku puppet theater and transferred later to Kabuki. This show, however, is a rare case of the reverse. The original play in 1777 was followed the next year by another work on the same subject, elements of which were then combined into a popular puppet play in 1785 that was in turn transformed more or less into the present Kabuki piece. It is based on an actual struggle for power that occurred within the Date clan of Sendai a century earlier. Though many fictional elements were added in the course of its various incarnations, most of the main characters are modeled on real people.
The Date succession battle is one of the most popular themes in Kabuki and has contributed a number of memorable plays to the repertoire, including Tsuruya Nanboku IV’s Date no Juyaku (Date’s Ten Roles, 1815), which was revived in modern times to great acclaim, and Kawatake Mokuami’s semi-documentary style Jitsuroku Sendai Hagi (The True Story of Sendai Hagi, 1876).
The most frequently performed scenes of the three-act play, Act II’s “The Palace” and “Beneath the Floor”, feature two of Kabuki’s most memorable characters: Masaoka, the nursemaid whose fierce devotion to her young master leads to personal tragedy, and Nikki Danjo, an archetypal portrayal of true evil.

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［from left］Masaoka（Bando Tamasaburo）、Yashio（Kataoka Nizaemon）、Sakae Gozen（Nakamura Karoku）　April 2009　Kabukiza Theatre