梨園

Rien—"the pear garden"—is an elegant name for the theatre world, above all kabuki. It derives from the story of the Tang emperor Xuanzong, who personally taught music and drama in a garden planted with pear trees, his pupils known as "disciples of the pear garden." Edo-period scholars of Chinese learning are said to have applied the word to the theatre, and from the Meiji era onward it came to mean the kabuki world in particular.

Today rien refers to kabuki actors, their families, and the society of kabuki itself—a single word folding in the long centuries through which the art has passed from house to house, master to pupil.

The word lives on in China as well: the world of Beijing opera is still gracefully called the liyuan—'the pear garden'—and its acting families and disciples are said to be known as 'children of the pear garden.' A single word born in the Tang court continues, on both sides of the sea, to name each country's classical theatre.

The Ichikawa Sōke, with its history reaching back to the Edo period, is among the most representative names of the rien. The depth of the word measures the very length of time through which house and art have been handed down in kabuki.