千両役者

A senryō yakusha was an Edo-period kabuki actor whose popularity and skill commanded a yearly salary approaching a thousand ryō. Actors contracted exclusively with a theatre for the year running from the eleventh month, and one whose fee reached that extraordinary sum earned the name.

The birth of the senryō yakusha is traditionally dated to 1721, when Ichikawa Danjūrō II received a salary of one thousand ryō; he and Yoshizawa Ayame I are counted as the first. Today the phrase has left the theatre to praise a standout performer in any field.

The art of the thousand-ryō actor still breathes on today's stage, for Danjūrō II, counted among the first senryō yakusha, is also said to have created the hero of Sukeroku in the Kabuki Jūhachiban. The dazzling hanamichi entrance, snake-eye umbrella in hand, conveys to this day the popularity for which Edo audiences begrudged no thousand ryō.

The very coinage of the word bears the name Ichikawa Danjūrō: it arose because Danjūrō II, master of aragoto, held Edo's affection in his single person. Senryō yakusha is a word where the history of the Ichikawa Sōke and the history of the Japanese language meet.