The play "Yura no Minato Sengen Chôja" was originally written for the puppet theater (Bunraku) and staged for the first time in the 5th lunar month of 1761 in Ôsaka at the Takemotoza. It was adapted for Kabuki the next year and staged for the first time in 1763 in Ôsaka at the Sonezaki Shinchi Minami no Shibai (not an ôshibai venue). It was staged for the first time in ôshibai, in Ôsaka in the 5th lunar month of 1784 at the Kado no Shibai [casting]. It was premiered in Edo only in the 7th lunar month of 1837, at the Ichimuraza under the title "Sanshô-dayû Kogane no Toridoshi" [casting]. The story of "Yura no Minato Sengen Chôja" was based on the legend of Sanshô-dayû (the tayû Sanshô), an old and famous sekkyô-bushi. The way to write Sanshô in "Yura no Minato Sengen Chôja" was not the classic writing but it used the ideograms for 'three' (san) and 'villa' (shô):

It meant that Sanshô-dayû was the owner of three magnificent and prosperous villas in Hashidate, Nariai and Yura ^[1].

In modern times, "Yura no Minato Sengen Chôja" was revived only twice during the 1950s. Here is the list of all performances in ôshibai from the end of WWII to 1959:

"Yura no Minato Sengen Chôja" was in 5 acts.

Iwaki Hangan Masauji, head of the Iwaki family of Ôshû, has been assassinated by a rônin because of the ambitions of Tokikado, Lord of Ôe. Masauji's wife, Mutsuki-no-Kata ^[2], accompanied by the faithful retainer Motoyoshi Kanamenosuke, flees with their children, Princess Anju and Zushiômaru.

The loyal Iwaki retainer Ôwada Kuranoshin commits suicide (seppuku) because of his master's death. Mutsuki-no-Kata gets as far as Ôgi Bridge in Echigo, where she is separated from her offspring by a slave dealer. The slaver Yamaoka Gonroku is an old Iwaki retainer who is trying to raise money to form an army in hopes of restoring the Iwaki clan, and does not recognize the family he is splitting up. Mutsuki-no-Kata is sent to Sado Island, and the children are sold to Master Sanshô (or Sanshô the bailiff), the very rônin who murdered Masauji. He has become an avaricious millionaire who gets his name, meaning "Three Villas," from the homes in different places in Tango with which he has been rewarded by Tokikado. The children, now called Nobuo and Wasuregusa, are engaged in back-breaking labor on his property in Yura Bay, where they haul salt from the sea and cut grass, being tortured if they complain. Kanamenosuke visits the youngsters in hopes of saving them, but is captured by Sanshô's nephew, Yura no Saburô. Recognized as an Iwaki, he is sentenced to death by beheading, along with the siblings, when the first cock crows at dawn.

Osan, Sanshô's daughter-in love with Kanamenosuke, whom she once met at a flower viewing-is, because of her father's bad karma (inga), afflicted with a disease that causes her to be transformed into a fowl before dawn, when she flaps her wings and crows. She is thus called Tori Musume or "Chicken Girl." There is a saying that if you buy one thousand white chickens, your daughter will become empress, but in the present case, Sanshô has bought one thousand chickens in hopes of hiding his daughter's strange ailment. She hopes to save Kanamenosuke's life by preventing her father's thousand chickens from crowing, and runs around killing them, but cannot prevent herself turning into one of them and crowing. She chews Kanamenosuke's ropes off and then kills herself. The children are set free and escape, and the samurai confronts Sanshô. The latter, however, recognizes him as the child who was stolen from him years ago and realizes that Masauji was his own master. Repenting of the crimes that he has committed (modori), he allows his long-lost son to kill him. Kanamenosuke takes his own life to atone for having slain his father. The children head for Sado, where they are reunited with their mother.

The highlight comes with the vision of the mad Osan in the form of a fowl, a transformation effected largely by the use of a costume, revealed via bukkaeri, on which a unique feathered pattern has been dyed. The subject of a woman turned into a bird resembles that of "Sagi Musume".

Courtesy of Samuel Leiter Summary from "New Kabuki Encyclopedia"

[1] A few characters in this drama had a name linked to these 3 places : Yura no Saburô, Hashidate no Gorô and Nariai no Tarô.

[2] Mutsuki-no-Kata or Kita no Kata.

An illustration from the ezukushi banzuke for the staging of the drama "Yura no Minato Sengen Chôja" in the 5th lunar month of 1784 in Ôsaka at the Kado no Shibai with Kagaya Kashichi I (top), Mihogi Gizaemon II (bottom/left) and Yamashita Kamenojô IV (bottom/left) in the roles of the tayû Sanshô, Yamaoka Gonroku and Sanshô's musume Osan

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