The Actor Ichikawa Komazo II as the Spirit of Lady Shiragiku in the Play Hatsu Midori Saiwai Soga, Performed at the Kawarazaki Theater in the Third Month, 1791

Ichikawa Komazō II, a male-role specialist, appears here in the unusual circumstance of playing a female ghost — the Spirit of Lady Shiragiku — in the third-month 1791 Kawarazaki Theater production of Hatsu Midori Saiwai Soga. Cross-gender casting in kabuki occasionally placed male-line actors in supernatural female roles where the supernatural element justified a departure from gender-specific specialization. This hosoban print in the Art Institute of Chicago shows Shun'ei rendering the figure with the slightly diaphanous quality appropriate to a ghost, while preserving the recognizable Komazō facial features. The play, another Soga-cycle production, is here inflected by a supernatural plotline in which Lady Shiragiku's vengeful spirit appears — a typical kabuki narrative move that combined the New Year Soga obligation with the ghost-play (kaidan) appetite of the season. The print represents Shun'ei in his mature 1790s mode, deftly negotiating role and persona within the established Katsukawa visual idiom.