Chikamatsu Tokuzô's drama "Sarumawashi Kadode no Hitofushi" was premiered in the 7th lunar month of 1798 at the Kado no Shibai [more details]. It was a kiri kyôgen, which recycled of the 1782 puppet theater drama "Chikagoro Kawara no Tatehiki" with a happy ending insted of a shinjû. The story of Oshun and Denbê was based on a real event that happened in Kyôto the 5th day of the 4th lunar month of 1703: the double suicide along the Kamogawa River of the rice merchant Denbê and the girl Oshun from Horikawa.

"Sarumawashi" fell into oblivion but it could be a very good candidate for a revival at the National Theatre in the future to come!

The original drama was in 2 acts.

Izutsuya Denbê is trying to retrieve a scroll painting of a hawk belonging to someone in whose debt he stands, but the painting is in the hands of the Kameyama samurai Yokobuchi Kanzaemon, who also desires Denbê's courtesan mistress, Tanbaya Oshun. Denbê gets the scroll back with the help of Takiguchi Sanai, the brother of his fiancée, Omitsu. However, while Denbê is fighting with Kanzaemon at the dry riverbed near the Shijô avenue in Kyôto, the scroll tears. After killing the samurai, he takes refuge with Oshun at the home of her brother, Yojirô, a monkey handler, in Horikawa. Yojirô divines their intention to kill themselves and uses his monkey to advise them to flee. Before they can die in Shôgoin Forest, loved ones arrive to prevent their demise. The torn scroll proves to be a forgery, and all ends in a happy grand finale.

Courtesy of Samuel Leiter Summary from "New Kabuki Encyclopedia"

Illustration from a ehon banzuke for the staging of the drama "Sarumawashi Kadode no Hitofushi" in the 7th lunar month of 1798 at the Kado no Shibai with the actors Nakayama Hyôtarô I, Fujikawa Tomokichi I and Arashi Kichisaburô II in the roles of Izutsuya Denbê, Oshun and Yojirô

Prints & Illustrations