The Actor Nakamura Nakazo I as Kamaya Buhei in the play "Fude Hajime Soga no Tamazusa," performed at the Nakamura Theater in the first month, 1768

Torii Kiyomitsu shows Nakamura Nakazo I in the role of Kamaya Buhei in Fude Hajime Soga no Tamazusa, performed at the Nakamura-za in the first month of 1768. Nakamura Nakazo I (1736-1790) was one of the rising stars of Edo kabuki in the late 1760s, an actor whose career would extend well into the 1780s and who would become one of the major aragoto specialists of the late eighteenth century. Born into the Nakamura family of actors - one of the senior Edo theatrical lineages, with the Nakamura-za itself as the senior of the three licensed theatres - he combined the dynastic prestige of the Nakamura name with the personal talent that allowed him to make the role of Nakamura Nakazo a major name in its own right rather than a junior position within a larger family hierarchy. Kiyomitsu's yakusha-e of him document the actor's career in its emerging phase, before his later rise to the senior ranks of Edo kabuki. The first-month Soga material was a perennial of the Edo theatrical calendar, with the title 'Fude Hajime' - 'first writing' - placing the play within the New Year season's hatsu-prefixed observances. Kamaya Buhei is one of the secondary character roles within the broader Soga material. The hosoban print is held at the Art Institute of Chicago.