早替わり

In hayagawari, a single actor plays two or more roles within one scene, switching in a matter of moments—across age, gender, even good and evil. The device flourished in the ghost plays of the early nineteenth century, with Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan as its most celebrated showcase.

Backstage, teams of specialists execute rapid makeup and costume changes, and body doubles of similar build buy precious seconds. Yet speed alone does not make hayagawari: the heart of the art is inhabiting each role fully, before and after the change.

The play that gathers hayagawari's delights into one is Tsuruya Nanboku IV's Osome Hisamatsu Ukina no Yomiuri, known as "the seven roles of Osome." At its premiere in 1813, Iwai Hanshirō V is said to have won acclaim by playing seven parts of differing rank and age—the lovers Osome and Hisamatsu among them—through quick changes. It has been revived ever since as a supreme test of the onnagata's art.

Hayagawari belongs to kabuki as a whole, part of the shared repertoire of keren stagecraft. In one body crossing between several lives lies the essence of kabuki as an art of transformation.