Katsukawa Shunsho records here a moment from the dance sequence Sodegasa Momiji no Tekuda (Umbrella Sleeves: Coquettish Tricks at Maple Time), drawn from the fourth act of Hikitsurete Yagoe Taiheiki, staged at the Morita Theater in the eleventh month of 1776. Nakamura Nakazo I appears at left as the samurai Hata Rokurozaemon disguised as the yakko (manservant) Igaguri Hanehei, while Nakamura Noshio I plays the lady-in-waiting Koto no Naishi at right. This Art Institute of Chicago impression demonstrates the Katsukawa school's specialty of pairing actors in compositions that compress an entire dance passage into a single page. Shunsho's drawing of Nakazo, the era's most admired actor in disguise roles, conveys the dual identity central to the scene: the manservant's stance is unmistakably servile, yet the carriage of the head betrays the samurai concealed beneath the costume. Noshio I, an onnagata, is given the rounded sleeve flourishes and downcast eyes that defined his stage manner. Yakusha-e of this kind formed the visual record of the kaomise and ninth- to eleventh-month seasonal productions that anchored the kabuki year in Edo. The print's careful captioning, identifying play, theater, and date, situates it within the Katsukawa school's documentary mission for Edo ukiyo-e of the 1770s.
