한국일본학회

In the Meiji period, there was a remarkable movement for refinement and canonization of kabuki and the specialized roles of the Onoe family was one of its distinctive characteristics. The idea that the kabuki actors selected their best plays and compiled them into a collection was started by Ichikawa Danjūrō VII. He named the collection as Kabuki jūhachiban and his son Danjūrō IX finalized this. Shinko engeki jisshu is a collection of ten plays representing the performance styles of the Onoe family and this intended to oppose Ichikawa family. The selection of the Onoe family specialized roles was an attempt to authorize their acting styles that had been handed down from one generation to the next. Through these projects, actors expressed their pride as a leader and a central family in kabuki world. The current study investigated into the reason why Kikugorō V chose the plays that portrayed ghost women and paranormal spirits as representative works of their ancestors, even though the Onoe family primarily played male roles. Such fact resulted from the transition of kabuki history. The onnagata’s position was extended and not restricted to yūjo or the prostitute roles and the barrier between the female and male acting began to collapse. Against this background, the Onoe family ancestors, who were basically tachiyaku actors, became frontrunners initiating the typical role of grotesque and venomous women which confronted the conventional onnagata roles. Thus, Kikugorō V was able to perform by crossing the boundaries of male and female acting on account of hereditarily performance styles in the Meiji era. Furthermore, it can be said that Shinko engeki jisshu was an aggregation of uniquely grotesque and fearful performance styles accumulated by the Onoe family ancestors and Kikugorō V.