Kabuki A to Z:Nanatsumen｜文化デジタルライブラリー

Nanatsumen

【七つ面】

【NANATSUMEN】

“Nanatsumen”. Nakamura Jakuemon 4th as Akoya, Kawarasaki Gonjuro 3rd as Hatakeyama, Nakamura Tokizo 5th as Hitomaru, Onoe Shoroku 2nd as Kagekiyo, Iwai Hanshiro 10th as Kagetaka, Ichimura Uzaemon 17th as Ema no Koshiro, and Onoe Tatsunosuke 1st (Onoe Shoroku 3rd) as Mihonoya no Shiro. January, 1983 at the National Theatre. （Y_E0100119000073）

One of the Kabuki-Juhachiban plays.
It is said that the play was premiered by Ichikawa Danjuro 2nd in 1740, but there is no script left. The record tells that in this play he would pick up a mask from a box one after another and put it on, and imitate the movement of the characters presented by the masks. It is plausible to say that Danjuro 7th selected this work as one of the Kabuki-Juhachiban, simply because it was a specialty play of the 2nd generation.
The play was long abandoned during the Edo period, but Danjuro 9th revived it as a Shosagoto play “Shin-Nanatsumen” after the Meiji period. Most recently, Onoe Shoroku 2nd newly restored it at the National Theatre in 1977.