The Actor Nakamura Tomijuro I as Takenuki Goro in the Play Eho Soga Nen-nen-goyomi, Performed at the Morita Theater in the First Month, 1771

Katsukawa Shunsho's yakusha-e of Nakamura Tomijuro I as Takenuki Goro records a first-month performance at the Morita Theater in 1771, drawn from a Soga-themed play with the title 'Eho Soga Nen-nen-goyomi.' Takenuki Goro, literally 'Goro of the pulled bamboo,' is one of the iconic visual conceits of Soga-mono kabuki, a moment of superhuman strength in which the warrior Soga Goro pulls up a bamboo as a display of pent-up rage. The role was typically taken by leading aragoto actors, and the chance to perform Takenuki Goro became one of the touchstones of an Edo actor's career. Nakamura Tomijuro I, primarily celebrated as an onnagata, here takes on the male warrior part, a casting choice that signals the kind of cross-register virtuosity that Edo audiences prized. Shunsho's design responds with a careful balance of aragoto bravado and Tomijuro's distinctive features, allowing the print to function both as celebrity portrait and as documentation of a specific eleventh-month repertoire choice. The first month of 1771 placed the Morita Theater squarely in the most heavily promoted programming slot of the year, and Katsukawa school prints of this performance circulated as immediate cultural news as well as enduring collectible art. Held in the Art Institute of Chicago, the impression remains a key document of both Tomijuro I's career and the Edo ukiyo-e Soga-mono tradition that the Katsukawa school did so much to record and shape.