Japanese Portraits: Pictures of Different People (17 page)

He sat down. The polite applause continued for a while, then stopped.

The moderator introduced me.

I, still seeing those little boys disappearing down the beach, still seeing Hijikata cavorting alone against that sea, rose to speak.

Yatsuhashi appears from behind the artificial cherry blossoms, accompanied by the other
onnagata—
all men as well—acting the part of attendants to the grand
oiran,
and followed by an entourage of young umbrella-holders, clog boys, and little girl apprentices with painted cheeks. High on her stilted sandals she performs that elegant stroll, the
oiran dochu,
the proud procession of the courtesans which opens the Kabuki drama
Kagotsurube.

It is Utaemon who always plays this faithless
oiran
, grandest of all the old Yoshiwara courtesans. It is he who some two hours hence will be cut down by the sword of the man spurned once too often.

Expressionless, mouth pursed in the
onnagata
pout, a face forever complacent, body a mass of scarlet kimono with a great hanging butterfly sash and a high wig holding chopstick-looking bars of amber, a magnificently cocooned female, almost too slow, too stately to be entirely human, Utaemon places one stilted foot before the other.

And once again the aged Utaemon turns eighteen, as once more to shouts from the waiting throng he steps into the glare of the
hanamichi
runway, stares about with the scorn of the true courtesan, and begins that lofty procession through the Yoshiwara of two hundred years before.

And, in Tokyo at any rate, only Utaemon can do this. Shochiku, the company controlling the Nakamura Kabuki, is quite faithful—unlike Yatsuhashi. It has tacitly decreed that only Utaemon may play this faithless heroine, one of the great
onnagata
roles. No one else for the time being can have this part, not even the younger favorite, Tamasaburo.

This is not, however, the reason why Utaemon appears complacent.
Onnagata
always appear so. It has something to do with the male mouth in repose, also with the Cupid's bow of lip-rouge on which tradition insists. It appears offstage as well.

This is because, as the greatest of
onnagata
have often averred, to fully realize a woman on the stage one must retain all her characteristics off it. Hence perhaps stories of these impersonators wearing women's clothes around the house, using the female side of the public bath, the ladies' convenience, and so on.

Admittedly, some contemporary
onnagata—
Baiko, for example—leave the lady on the stage. They are married, have children, play golf and, at home, look like bank employees. But, says received opinion, the flower of the art is found only in those—and Utaemon is one—for whom the persona is inseparable from the person, who sustain this feminine creation throughout all the phases of masculine life.

Feminine is the proper term. The
onnagata
creates a man's idea of a woman. There is no distortion intended, but still the creation is that of a man, complacent mouth and all. So perhaps it is inaccurate to speak of a persona, to thus suggest that there exists some more authentic alternate. An actor visibly creates himself. We others do the same thing but we are usually not aware of doing so and, in any event, do not do it on the stage. The actor, however, knows what he is about. He consciously constructs himself and it is this fabrication that becomes authentic. Other professionals can recognize and admire it. Like Garbo.

When the Kabuki was making its first New York appearance in the late spring of 1960, she came to City Center every day. Then, one afternoon, she went backstage, determined to meet Utaemon.

When she was finally taken, by Faubion Bowers, to Utaemon's dressing room, Garbo waited while the actor was called. Was it all right if Garbo came in? Who? was the reply, probably incredulous. Then: No, it is not. I am old and not pretty at all. It's better if she sees me all made up. Besides, I'm all sweaty.

This was duly conveyed to Garbo who, straightforward as always, indicated her enthusiasm and regard with: But I want to see his sweat.

Unfortunately, she did not get to see it. Still, once made up, Utaemon did come out and with Bowers's assistance they talked.

Then it was time for
Chushingura
to begin, and Utaemon took his place for the opening scene. The clappers sounded, but just before the curtain began to slide aside, Garbo stepped onto the stage, ran lightly to the dais where Utaemon was sitting, and touched the
onnagata
on the shoulder. Startled, he turned. She waved. He waved back, the
hyoshigi
clapped faster and faster, the curtain was pulled open, and Garbo, at its very fringe, escaped into the wings.

One knows how she felt. Seeing Utaemon, or any
onnagata
, on the stage, one wants to touch him, to make certain perhaps that he is real, for a person contrived with such apparent artifice does seem unreal. And touching conveys, among other things, regard. Garbo, herself her own creation—those great, feeling eyes, the depths of her apparent understanding, the great strength of the woman, barely glimpsed and so often subverted by the whims of love—had contrived a female persona as surely as has Utaemon.

Utaemon's being an
onnagata
has allowed him to adopt a number of mannerisms we might think of as being feminine. Though in many ways his life is that of any artist—always teaching, practicing, seeing patrons and pupils—and though he allows himself a full schedule for masculine pleasure, including an interest in Las Vegas, he is also capable of a prima donna's exhibition of, for example, professional jealousy. His rivalry with Tamasaburo, that younger
onnagata
of whom the media make so much, occasionally surfaces.

He is also capable of displaying the airs of the courtesan he so often impersonates. Yukio Mishima once told me, though with how much truth I do not know, that Utaemon always expected jewels when the younger author had returned from abroad, and that he was particularly delighted with some Mexican fire opals he brought back, a fact that also delighted the grinning Mishima because—something not known to the
onnagata—
they had been dirt cheap.

Utaemon was also capable of pique, as I myself discovered. We were together in New York that spring of 1960 because I was doing the simultaneous (more or less) translation for the local audience, and during this period I had become friendly with the young man who held the umbrella over Yatsuhashi during her opening
oiran dochu
in
Kagotsurube.

This resulted in my being called to the dressing room, where Utaemon was putting on his makeup for the evening's performance. Smiling, perfectly friendly, patting onto his face the dead white of the
oiran,
painting on those carmine lips, he talked about the weather, about the gratifyingly enthusiastic audiences, and the fact that my attentions were keeping the young man from his proper study and his habitual role in the household. This last was accompanied by the sweetest and most complaisant of smiles, and Utaemon's irresistible little bow, one that combines the winsomeness of an adorable child with the acumen of a woman of the world.

Naturally, I respected these wishes and no longer attempted to show the youth the sights of New York, and all would have been well had I not then been asked, no one else being available, to take Utaemon out shopping.

It turned out that he needed a pair of comfortable shoes to go with the Western suit he thought he ought sometimes to wear in New York and, no, he would not be bringing with him the large stuffed animal, a teddy bear, I believe, that he sometimes carried about.

We set off. Utaemon apparently felt some constraint because of our previous conversation. I felt none, but this was difficult to convey as shoe store after shoe store failed to have anything small enough to fit the
onnagata's
tiny foot. Was I not, the occasional glance, ever more beady, asked, choosing shops notorious for their large sizes? And was I not doing this to discomfort, to have my revenge for some prior humiliation?

Finally—and I am certain that this was seen as the ultimate insult by the increasingly peevish
onnagata
—a suitable pair was found in the children's department at Macy's. After that my airy greeting of
ohayo gozaimasu
went unanswered for quite a time, and indeed relations which could have been called cordial were never restored.

His pique—understandable, perhaps, but as I say not a quality we usually associate with men, preferring, rightly or wrongly, to call the quality feminine—was yet more proof, if more be needed, of how deep went Utaemon's identification with the part he played.

Yatsuhashi is not all that scornful, all that cold. Indeed, she has a certain regard for the disappointed admirer who cuts her down. He had arrived an uncouth countryman and had pulled himself together through his love for her. If it were not that she had a younger lover whom she really loved, then perhaps she would have let the older man buy her out as he so wanted. Perhaps she would have ended up a comfortable mistress, or the proprietress of her own house, anything but the grandly attired corpse left lying on the stage at the close of
Kagotsurube.

Utaemon makes us realize this. As we watch, this elegant and artificial creation comes alive, for it is human to have doubts, to realize that one is not, after all, consistent.

Yatsuhashi wavers and Utaemon shows us, by actually wavering, a solitary figure on the darkened stage, a person torn, like us. And yet, the difference.

This difference, we are told, is art.

He impersonates that male invention, feminity, and does it so well that only those seams which he wants to show are allowed to be visible. A man imitating a woman imitating a lady. This expert imitation is evident particularly in that weary yet still popular play about Dr. Hanaoka's wife which I went to see him in.

The doctor's mother and spouse are in competition to see who can show the most devotion. Like most Shimpa, it is filled with the stuff of tragedy: lots of cancer, women being gored in the breasts by crazed cows, the doctor's grand experiment where he puts both under anesthesia and the wife goes blind and the mother is consumed with jealousy because she too had wanted in equally drastic fashion to prove her devotion to her doctor son.

Afterward I go to pay my respects. Tamasaburo is in a mauve dressing gown, decolleté. All makeup off, he looks scrubbed, very young.

- I didn't think you'd like Shimpa, he says: Too weepy.

He then tells me something about it, that century-old domestic drama, being careful about its dates and judicious about its qualities. Like many actors Tamasaburo wants to give an impression of seriousness. He wants to talk about ideas, as though to prove that he is capable of them.

All trace of the feminity I saw portrayed on the stage is gone. He is, rather, like an adolescent, still retaining something of the gender freedom of childhood but already concerned with the ways of the adult world; thinking about it, making sense of it.

I spoke of the day's performance and mentioned that his pregnancy was so convincing the audience laughed.

- Well, he said: One has to do something.

I wonder if actors know how dreadful their plays often are. Maybe they are right not to. The audience does, though—laughing during a tragedy, for example. This could easily destroy the supension of belief we are told is necessary for theater to work. Well, maybe, but that is only the case in Western theater. At the Shimpa, disbelief is part of the experience. Nobody goes to see the play, they go to see the actor.

- That's because acting here is all to do with technique, said Tamasaburo: Even when I was little I learned roles as you learn a sport. People come to see me like they go to see a good sumo wrestler or a good baseball pitcher. They watch me perform. Oh, you can see them getting their hankies out, but they're also watching to see how well you do what you do. And you do it well because you know how to do it. You don't have to feel anything. You're not supposed to.

I asked if he didn't feel like a woman when he played a woman.

He laughed. How would I know? he said: I'm not a woman.

Then, remembering that he was the host, he politely asked, since we had been speaking of acting, about my small role in Teshigahara's film,
Rikyu
, which he had heard I was in.

Then, with no transition at all: Was it your first time?

Not unnaturally, I thought he was talking about my acting debut.

- And not very good, I modestly said.

At this he gave a high-pitched laugh. No, no—he had meant, was this my first time at Shimpa.

Straightened out, the conversation continued, but I'd had a glimpse of the charm of a person whose instinctive reaction had been to disarm with laughter. Apparently challenged, he had retreated into that male invention—femininity.

As we went on talking, the intelligent, dedicated man of the theater returned, yet when I rose to leave, there was the lady of the house again—the good hostess seeing off a guest. But then everyone does this: most men everywhere are their fathers at hello and their mothers at goodbye.