The actor Nakamura Utaemon V playing the role of nanny Masaoka in the play Meiboku Sendai Hagi

The print depicts Nakamura Utaemon V as Masaoka, the loyal nanny who protects the young heir Tsuruchiyo in Meiboku Sendai Hagi. Utaemon V was an older-generation onnagata whose Masaoka was a touchstone of the role's interpretation in the late Meiji and early Showa eras. The mamamadaki rice-cooking scene -- where Masaoka prepares a meal in the closed apartment to test for poison and to suppress her grief at her own son's sacrificial death -- gives the part its central pathos, and Ota's composition likely captures her in the kneeling posture with the small tea utensils that the scene requires. The kimono carving emphasizes the restrained pattern appropriate to a nanny in service, contrasted with the elaborate hairstyle convention of an onnagata role. As one of Ota's portraits of an earlier generation Utaemon, the print belongs to the documentary thread of his output: preserving the appearance of actors whose careers preceded the postwar period and whose performances survive otherwise only in still photographs and written reviews.