Background
Shibaraku (Stop right there! 暫) is a showpiece scene comprising standardized but exciting confrontations in a short interlude drama between longer plays. It was traditionally part of a day-long kabuki production that featured kaomise (face-showing: 顔見世) or ceremonial introductions of actors at the annual opening of the theater season. Shibaraku was created by Ichikawa Danjûrô I around 1697 and was basically obligatory in kaomise by the early eighteenth century. The scene is also one of the Kabuki jûhachiban (Eighteen favorite plays: 歌舞伎十八番), a set of seminal aragoto (rough-style plays: 荒事, first introduced by Ichikawa Danjûrô I) performed by the Ichikawa lineage of actors since the late eighteenth century. These plays were and still are central to the kabuki repertory. The eighteen plays were primarily developed by the first two Danjûrôs (1660-1704 and 1688-1758, respectively), and codified by Danjûrô VII in 1832.
The plot centers around Kamakura Gongorô Kagemasa (鎌倉権五郎景政), born in 1069, who gained fame when he continued in battle despite losing an eye during the Gosannen kassen (Gosannen War: 後三年合戦), 1083-1087. Soon after his introduction to the kabuki stage in the eighteenth century, the role of Kagemasa became synonymous with the stereotypical bombastic stage hero. Played with with red-and-white striped kumadori (lit., "painting the shadows" or elaborate makeup: 隈取) and bold energetic movement, he is the quintessential aragoto figure.
Shibaraku is derived from an actual occurrence when fellow actors refused to give Danjûrô I his cue to make an entrance. Danjûrô shouted "Shibaraku!" and stepped onto the hanamichi (lit., "flower path": 花道) or raised passageway extending from the kabuki stage into the audience. Once written into the repertoire, the scene takes place at the Tsuruoka Hachimangû shrine in Kamakura. The evil lord Kiyohara no Takehira has usurped imperial power and taken loyalists prisoner, including their leader Prince Kamo Jirô Yoshitsuna and his betrothed Princess Katsura-no-Mae. Takehira plans to execute them, but a loud "Shibaraku" comes from the end of the hanamichi, and the imposing warrior Kagemasa arrives to rescue them.
Design
A performance in Shibaraku by Utaemon III appears unrecorded in kabuki records. It is possible that this is a mitate-e (comparison picture: 見立絵) or imaginary performance designed by the artist to please himself or a patron who desired an image of Utaemon III in this famous role, which was, after all, an Ichikawa specialty, not a Nakamura showpiece. Continuing with this fantasy, the spectacular robe, which would typically be emblazoned with the mimasu crest (three concentric squares representing rice measuring boxes: 三舛) of the Ichikawa actors, is here patterned with huge crossed scrolls, Utaemon III's emblem.
The background of this design was once covered with a fugitive blue pigment, probably aigami (dayflower blue: 藍紙) which is now completely faded. Even so, one can discern the inscriptions for the role and actor's name at the top right (see scan at right), along with the characters for Kôjin sugata (Likenesses of the people of today), in this context meaning the actual appearance of Utaemon III in his costume.
The overall condition of this print is below the standard we have set for this website, but it is such a rare item, and so fine a composition by an artist whose works are hardly ever encountered, that we chose to make it available. We are also offering it at a price much below what it would cost in noticeably better condition. There is another example in the Hendrick Lühl collection (see references below; WB features it on the cover of the catalog, and SDK allots it a full-page illustration). Although the Lühl print is not as damaged as ours, it is far more faded in the red face make-up and the collar of the inner orange robe. [The reddish brown outer robe is printed with a color-fast pigment that resists fading.] It also appears to be more trimmed than ours (note that we have the full image on the left, where the end of the costume color-block is visible), and that the costume as drawn by Baika extends well beyond the borders of the single-sheet ôban format. There is one other impression in the Naprstek Museum, which is part of the Prague National Museum.
References: WB, p. 17, no. I3; SDK, p. 150, no. 319
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