怪談物

Kaidan-mono are kabuki plays in which ghosts and apparitions walk. Traditionally a genre of summer programming—a chill against the heat—they tell stories of grudge and karmic retribution through keren-laden staging: quick changes, trick scenery, and startling stage machinery.

The genre's masterpiece is Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan by Tsuruya Nanboku IV, said to have premiered at the Nakamura-za in Edo in 1825. The vengeful spirit of Oiwa, betrayed and destroyed by her husband, materializes through celebrated effects—the hair-combing scene, the ghost emerging from a lantern.

When Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan is staged, the cast customarily pays its respects at shrines and temples associated with Oiwa, such as the Oiwa Inari Tamiya Shrine in Yotsuya, Tokyo. The custom—praying for a safe run and honoring Oiwa—tells how kabuki's ghost plays have been handed down with an awe and reverence that reach beyond the stage itself.

At that premiere the role of Oiwa's husband, Tamiya Iemon, is said to have been taken by Ichikawa Danjūrō VII. That the Danjūrō name stands on the very first page of kabuki's ghost-play lineage speaks to the breadth of the family's art.