Artist: Ippitsusai Buncho (1725-1794)
Title: The Actor Arashi Hinaji I
Date: 1769
Medium: Polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper.
Collector’s seal: Henri Vever
Gift of Dr. Cecilia Segawa Seigle

This print was designed by Ippitsusai Buncho in 1769 to commemorate and promote the actor Arashi Hinaji in the play “Kawaranu Hana Sakae Hachi-no-ki” at the Edo theatre Nakamura-za. Arashi was a popular performer of onnagata roles, where male actors performed female roles on the kabuki stage. This became the standard practice after women were banned from performing in kabuki in 1629.

The performance of onnagata roles was appreciated in Edo culture and society, and many onnagata actors were considered to be the feminine ideal, appreciated by both men and women. In separating biological sex from gender representation, yet performing femininity within strictly-defined parameters, the onnagata such as Arashi Hinaji both subvert and reinforce the gender distinctions of Edo Japan.

The only other known impression of this print may be found at the Waseda University Theatre Museum.

Selected Readings

• Fujita, Minoru and Shapiro, Michael. Transvestism and the onnagata traditions in Shakespeare and Kabuki. Kent: Global Oriental, 2006.
• Leiter, Samuel. A Kabuki Reader: History and Performance. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2002.
• Leiter, Samuel. Historical Dictionary of Japanese Traditional Theatre. London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014.
• Mezur, Katherine. Beautiful Boys/ Outlaw Bodies: Devising Kabuki Female-Likeness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

 

Posted by Molly Collett

May 1, 2016