The Actor Sanjo Kantaro II as a madwoman in the play "Kabuto Goban Tadanobu," performed at the Nakamura Theater in the eleventh month, 1728 (?)

Sanjo Kantaro II, a leading onnagata of late 1720s Edo kabuki, is shown by Torii Kiyomasu II in the role of a madwoman in the play Kabuto Goban Tadanobu, performed at the Nakamura-za in the eleventh month of 1728 (the question mark in the title indicating the Art Institute of Chicago's cautious attribution of the date). The 'madwoman' (kyojo) role-type was one of the great showpieces of the onnagata repertoire, descending from the Heian and medieval literary tradition of women driven to madness by separation from a lover or child, and supplying actors with the opportunity for extended emotional and physical performance: disordered hair, torn clothing, halting speech, ritualised gestures of grief, and the dance interludes in which the deranged female figure became a vehicle for choreographic display. The kyojo-mono (madwoman play) was a recurring sub-genre in both no theatre and Edo kabuki, and prints of leading onnagata in such roles constitute a substantial portion of the surviving Torii-school yakusha-e of the period. Kabuto Goban Tadanobu drew on the figure of Sato Tadanobu, the loyal retainer of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, whose name is invoked across multiple Edo theatrical works derived from the Yoshitsune legend. The eleventh-month kao-mise (face-showing) production at which the play opened marked the formal opening of the Nakamura-za's annual programme. The hosoban urushi-e medium is the standard Torii-school actor-print format of the period. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves the print, dated circa 1728.