Hanayagi Shotarô as Taki no Shiraito in "Taki no Shiraito" (瀧の白糸) (The white thread of the waterfall or The Water Magician) - Series Figures of the Modern Stage #11
現代舞台藝蕐(11) 瀧の白糸 花柳章太郎
The print
Artist: Ôta Masamitsu
Publisher: Miyake Koshodo (Banchoro)
Carver: Ito Susumu (1916-1998)
Printer: Ito Harutaro
Date: 1954 #39/200
Format: Oban-tate
Catalogue: S-221
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The play Taki no Shiraito (The White Thread of the Waterfall or The Water Magician) is based on a short story by Izumi Kyoka (1873-1939) Giketsu Kyōketsu (義 血 侠 血) (The Righteous and the Chivalrous) written in 1894, adapted for cinema by Mizoguchi Kenji in 1933 and again by Kimura Keigo in 1946 (with Mizutani Yaeko I in the lead role), then for kabuki in the 1950s.
The kabuki adaptation belongs to the Shinpa (New School) movement, a modern, more naturalistic version of kabuki that was in vogue in the late Meiji era (1868-1912). Shinpa is a very melodramatic, sentimental form of kabuki with tragic endings where some roles are played by women and onnagata (male actor playing a female role). This genre is in decline now and is only played in Tokyo today.
Taki no Shiraito: Artist name of the Water Magician, entertainer in a travelling funfair
Mizushima Tomo: Real name of Taki no Shiraito. In love with Murakoshi Kinya
Murakoshi Kinya: Carriage driver. Student who had to drop out of school
Minami: Entertainer, knife-thrower
Ogin: Minami's wife
Iwabuchi Gozo: Usurer
We are in 1890. Taki no Shiraito works as an entertainer in a troupe of travelling funfair and she is famous for her beauty and for her artistry in controlling streams of water into shapes and patterns. While the troupe takes part in the annual Kanazawa festival near the Asano River, she falls in love with Kinya Murakoshi, a young carriage driver who, when his parents died, had to give up his law studies and go to work to earn his life. Taki no Shiraito, real name Mizushima Tomo, promises to help him and offers him money so that he can resume his studies. At the end of the festival, they separate and Kinya takes the train to Tokyo.
Two years pass with Tomo sending money to Kinya who studies hard. But the spectators are dwindling and the fairground is experiencing difficulties. Tomo must resolve to financially help the members of the troupe, Minami the knife thrower and his wife Ogin, then Shinzo and Nadeshiko, the young couple who must flee the usurer Gozo Iwabuchi. She can no longer send anything to Kinya who is considering returning to work.
In desperation, she goes to the loan shark Gozo Iwabuchi. He rapes her before loaning her 300 yen. While crossing a park to return home, Tomo is attacked by thieves and robbed of those 300 yen so dearly paid. One of them drops a knife and Tomo realizes that it is identical to Minami's knives. She understands that the two men conspired to cheat her. Mad with anger, she returns to the usurer and in the ensuing fight, she accidentally kills him with Minami's knife. Panicked, Tomo flees to Tokyo to find Kinya but he is absent when she arrives in his room. She entrusts her landlady with the stolen money and is arrested before she can see her lover again.
In Kanazawa, the prosecutor unsuccessfully interrogates the two murder suspects, Minami who owns the murder weapon and Tomo who fled with blood on her clothes. The investigation drags on and in the population, the case involving Taki no Shiraito, the famous water magician, is causing a stir. And soon the news arrives that a new and brilliant prosecutor comes from Tokyo to take over the investigation.
The new prosecutor is none other than Kinya. Tomo, who has not seen him for three years, is happy to see that he has brilliantly succeeded and that her efforts have not been in vain. Kinya, in despair, realizes that he must judge his benefactress and that his own success is due to the money stolen from the murder victim. He doesn't know what to do and Tomo implores him to let her sacrifice herself and not reveal anything of their connection. During the trial, Tomo, questioned by Kinya, confesses to the murder and then commits suicide. Some time later, Kinya shoots himself in the head on the banks of the Asano River, where the lovers had sworn to help each other.
Hanayagi Shotarô (1894-1965) played mostly female roles in Shinpa movement plays and played also in several movies.
Poster for a 2011 performance
Hanayagi Shotarô as Taki no Shiraito in 1962
Poster for a 2017 performance
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