Yakusha tomo ginmi 役者友吟味

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Commentary by William D. Fleming

Posted June 1, 2017

Yakusha tomo ginmi (An insider’s critique of actors) is an anonymously authored “actor review-book” (yakusha hyōbanki 役者評判記) with illustrations by the Kyoto ukiyo-e artist Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671–1750). The review-book, or hyōbanki, was among the longest-lived genres of popular literature in the Edo period. Beginning in the early seventeenth century with reviews of courtesans and actors, review-books eventually expanded to cover almost any subject that could be ranked and evaluated, including artists, scholars, sumo wrestlers, poets, fiction, regional delicacies, and more.

Ejima Kiseki’s Yakusha kuchijamisen (The actor’s appeal; 1699) solidified many aspects of the actor review-book template that was to remain popular through the Meiji period. Key features include the division of the work into three volumes in a horizontal format (yokobon), one for each of early modern Japan’s major cities—typically ordered as Kyoto, Edo, and Osaka—and its distinctive theater culture. Actors are grouped within each volume by role type, with names appearing in order of descending rank (as assessed by the reviewer). Each entry features a header with the ranking at top, then the actor’s crest and name. This is followed by an imagined discussion in which theatergoers of varied backgrounds and tastes weigh in on the actor’s recent performances, his strengths and weaknesses, and other career developments. In addition to the ranked entries, review-books also typically feature short pieces of theater-themed fiction, as well as scattered illustrations of the actors on stage.

Following the model of the courtesan review-book, the rankings in actor review-books draw on a conventional range of grades, from jō jō kichi (A++; literally, “upper-upper good”) down to merely chū (satisfactory; literally, “middle”). Grade inflation, which was built into the system, only grew more pronounced with the passage of time, culminating in the ranking dai goku jō jō kichi (A++++; literally, “great utmost upper-upper good”). As a result, further gradations were introduced to allow more subtle distinctions. One innovation involved the omission of brush strokes to indicate slightly lower status, while a similar function was served by the use of a hollowed-out font, a technique that seems to have originated with Yakusha tomo ginmi.

Otherwise, Yakusha tomo ginmi deviates little from the established pattern. The text is divided into three volumes by city, with actors grouped within each volume according to specialty: these include male leads (tachiyaku), villains (tekiyaku), comic roles (dōke), young female roles (waka-onnagata), young male roles (wakashugata), and older female roles (kashagata). The opening lines of the first entry, devoted to the famous Kyoto actor Sakata Tōjūrō I (1647–1709), offer a taste of the genre’s characteristic prose style:

Whether it’s love scenes, disguised identities, or pairing up with a courtesan—well, it goes without saying we all know him as a master of these things. Sadly, as a result of his illness a few years back, there was a period when his movements and delivery were not what they had been. Nevertheless, with the improvement of his health this past year, his skills have recovered and his performances during the 1706 season were enjoyable. His Jūrō in Futsuka Soga [The Soga brothers in two days] . . . was particularly well executed and deserves special mention. While there are, of course, many masterful actors in the three cities, Tōjūrō is the only one who really inhabits this role and makes you feel like you’re seeing Jūrō himself in the flesh. [1]

The second volume, devoted to Edo, begins with a colorful example of the sort of short fiction one also finds in the actor review-book. The protagonists are the recently deceased Edo actors Ichikawa Danjūrō I 市川団十郎 (1660–1704) and Ikushima Daikichi I 生島大吉 (1675–1706), whom the narrative imagines entertaining the underworld by leading a public discussion of the contemporary theater scene in Edo. The story thus serves as a clever set-up for the volume’s reviews of living actors, with the two deceased actors participating in the discussions that accompany each entry.

The Pulverer copy is largely incomplete and consists only of a partial, rebound copy of the Osaka volume. The first seven leaves and the final twelve leaves are missing, taking with them the front matter, the first third of the opening narrative, and virtually all of the entries for female roles and young male roles (all that survives being the first page of the entry for Yoshizawa Ayame 芳沢あやめ [1673–1729], Osaka’s top female role specialist). The pages that remain are in good condition, with the illustrations colored by hand using yellow and orange-red pigment (in the manner of tan-e 丹絵). Two ownership seals appear on the first page. The first, which reads Renmen (連綿), belongs to an unknown collector whose literary tastes may be surmised from the handful of pieces of Edo-period popular fiction and comic poetry that survive in Japanese collections bearing the same seal. A second seal, which appears again on the inside back cover, features an abstract image of a flower or tree and also belongs to an unknown collector.

Selected readings:

Donald H. Shively, “The Social Environment of Tokugawa Kabuki,” in Studies in Kabuki: Its Acting, Music, and Historical Context, ed. James R. Brandon, William P. Malm, and Donald H. Shively (Honolulu: University Press of Hawai‘i, 1978), 1–61.

Copies in other collections:
Rikkyō University, Tokyo
Meiji University, Tokyo

Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Waseda University, Tokyo

[1] Translation by the author.