義太夫狂言

Gidayū kyōgen are kabuki plays transplanted from dramas written for the puppet theatre. The actors speak their characters' lines, while much of the narration of scene and feeling falls to the takemoto musicians. Because they derive from the complete puppet-theatre texts (maruhon), they are also called maruhon-mono.

Around the mid-eighteenth century, when the puppet theatre's popularity outstripped kabuki's, its celebrated works were taken up by actors and adapted en masse. Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami, Kanadehon Chūshingura, and Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura—the "three great plays"—are all gidayū kyōgen.

Gidayū kyōgen also go by the affectionate nickname denden-mono—said to come from hearing the thick-necked shamisen of the takemoto ensemble go "den-den." They are likewise called takemoto-geki or gidayū-mono. That the very sound of an instrument became the genre's name says everything about how inseparable these plays are from their music.

Gidayū kyōgen belong to no single house; they form one of the pillars of the classical repertoire. Together with aragoto they define kabuki's dramatic range, and actors of every family—the Ichikawa Danjūrō line among them—continue to test themselves against their great roles.