Sukeroku and Kanjinchō are Naritaya house arts — why can other actors perform them?

The phrase "house art" leads many to imagine something like copyright. It is not that. The Kabuki Jūhachiban were selected by Danjūrō VII from plays bound up with the Ichikawa line, but the designation is understood as a banner — the Ichikawa Sōke is the head family of these arts — rather than a prohibition on others performing them. Actors of other houses play Sukeroku and Kanjinchō, and doing so is no betrayal.

But it is not played identically. When another house takes on Sukeroku, custom has it use a title other than the Ichikawa Sukeroku Yukari no Edo-zakura, and re-score the music. When the Ichikawa Sōke plays Sukeroku, custom has the katōbushi society accompany the entrance from the stage; other houses set the entrance to a different musical form. Changing the title and the sound is itself the form respect takes. Custom also holds that word is sent to the sōke before the staging.

It is a well-made arrangement. The wider an art is performed, the more people know the play and the better it survives. At the same time, because the title and the music differ, what it means to see Sukeroku on the head family's own stage stands out all the more clearly. Not monopoly but gravity — that is how the relation between a great name and its arts has been kept.