The Actor Ichikawa Omezo I as the Boatman Takihei (?) in the Play Ofunamori Ebi no Kaomise (?), Performed at the Kawarazaki Theater (?) in the Eleventh Month, 1792 (?)

Katsukawa Shunei's portrait of Ichikawa Omezo I as the boatman Takihei comes from the eleventh-month 1792 kaomise production at the Kawarazaki Theater, the season opener at which new troupe rosters were unveiled to Edo audiences. Boatman roles were a staple of plebeian kabuki, allowing actors to display physical bravado, plain speech, and the rolling balance of a working waterman, and Omezo I was admired for the energy and rough charm he brought to such parts. Shunei catches him in mid-stride, the costume's tucked-up hems and bound sleeves rendered with vigorous outline while the face preserves the individualized likeness for which Edo yakusha-e by the Katsukawa school had become indispensable. The kaomise productions of the Kawarazaki, Ichimura, and Nakamura theaters were among the most important events in the kabuki calendar, and prints documenting their casts circulated quickly through Edo's print shops in the weeks following the premiere. As Katsukawa Shunsho's senior pupil, Shunei was by this date producing kabuki actor prints in volume that rivaled his master's. His handling of strongly defined townsman characters like Takihei shows how the Katsukawa school's individualized portraiture extended below the marquee leads to include the supporting players whose performances filled out a season. This impression is preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago among the museum's deep run of late-eighteenth-century Edo theater prints.