Just a moment! Shibaraku

Series
18 kabuki plays

Series Number
15

Title in English
Just a moment! Shibaraku

Title in Japanese
暫 Shibaraku

Title in French
Un instant! Shibaraku

The play
The “Shibaraku” scene was staged for the first time in 1697, within the drama “Daifukuchô Sankai Nagoya” with Ichikawa Danjûrô I playing the superhero role. This scene was a huge success and it quickly became a custom to include it within the kaomise programs (face-showing ceremony celebrating the new theatrical year) of the three Edo theaters during the eighteenth century. The current version of “Shibaraku” was designed by Ichikawa Danjûrô IX during the Meiji era.

The story
The scene is the inner yard of the famous Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine in Kamakura. The evil lord Kiyohara no Takehira has usurped the power and taken imperial loyalists prisoner, including their leader Prince Kamo Jirô Yoshitsuna and Yoshitsuna’s betrothed Princess Katsura-no-Mae. He plans to execute them. The henchmen of Takehira are a bunch of four red-faced warriors, a priest called Kashima Shinsai, the mysterious lady Teruha and a powerful warrior named Narita Gorô. The execution is about to start when a loud, chilling and angry-voiced “shibaraku” (“Just a moment!”) is heard from the other side of the stage. An imposing super-warrior named Kamakura Gongorô Kagemasa appears on the hanamichi, coming to the rescue of the prisoners. Takehira orders his henchmen to get rid of this mysterious intruder but they are no match for our superhero. The prisoners are free to leave the shrine. Takehira’s low-ranking soldiers try a last attack against Gongorô, who beheads them all in a single strike with his giant sword. Takehira is definitively defeated. Gongorô strikes his final mie pause and victoriously leaves the theater through the hanamachi.