Do the ōmukō calls of house names like "Naritaya!" reach the actors on stage?

First, a premise: the ōmukō calls not an actor's personal name but his yagō, the house name — "Naritaya" for the Ichikawa main line, "Otowaya" for the Onoe Kikugorō house. Calling the house rather than the person says a good deal about the character of this art. What is being acclaimed is not only one actor's skill but the family art handed down through generations.

With that in place, the answer is yes — and in a stronger sense than merely being audible. Calls land at the pressure points of the play's breathing: the locking of a mie, an entrance along the hanamichi, a withdrawal. The actor receives the cry inside the ma and moves into what follows. The call is not encouragement flying in from outside the play; it is built into the play's own time.

A good call, therefore, tightens a scene. One short well-pitched cry at exactly the right point raises the density of the instant; a call that misses the timing lets the scene go slack. That this is difficult is precisely why the calling societies have trained at it. Three centuries of cultivation between actors and audience have shaped this form of dialogue in the theatre, and a cry of "Naritaya!" sounds on top of all of it.