The Actors Bando Matakuro IV as Chubei, Osagawa Tsuneyo II as Umegawa, and Nakamura Katsugoro as Magoemon, in the play "Keisei Koibikyaku," performed at the Morita Theater in the fifth month, 1783

This Torii Kiyonaga actor print in the Art Institute of Chicago records a performance of Keisei Koibikyaku at the Morita Theater in the fifth month of 1783, with Bando Matakuro IV as the courier Chubei, Osagawa Tsuneyo II as the courtesan Umegawa, and Nakamura Katsugoro as Magoemon. Keisei Koibikyaku is the Edo kabuki adaptation of Chikamatsu Monzaemon's celebrated puppet play Meido no Hikyaku, in which Chubei embezzles his employer's funds to ransom Umegawa and the lovers flee toward inevitable death. Kiyonaga, who had succeeded as head of the Torii school under Kiyomitsu's lineage, was at this date executing the school's traditional duty of supplying actor portraits and theatrical billboards to the licensed Edo theaters. The three figures stand close together against a plain ground in his trademark tall, broad-shouldered proportions, costumes rendered in carefully balanced patterns that identify each role while serving the design as a unified composition. The print belongs to the dense run of 1783 [hosoban](/glossary/hosoban) actor sheets through which Kiyonaga modernized Torii school [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e), replacing the older Torii formula of strong attitudes with the calmer, more naturalistic stance that informed his [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga). Documented in the Art Institute of Chicago collection, it provides specific evidence of cast, theater, and month—the Morita-za, fifth month, 1783—anchoring a single performance in the historical record and illustrating how the Torii school continued to function as the visual chronicler of Edo kabuki during Kiyonaga's tenure.