Comedy - Yotsuya Kaidan / 喜劇 四谷怪談 (1969)

This post has been in the works almost continuously since I found out from my Sound of Music pamphlet that Hirata had been in some kind of Yotsuya Kaidan thing. (This is the role he was referring to when he mentioned that he sang a solo in a Yotsuya Kaidan adaptation with Norihei Miki.) There is scarcely enough information on it out there to warrant an entire post, but here goes.

What I know: This was a stage play that ran from September 3rd to September 26th at Tokyo's Imperial Theater. It was a comedy, with the very talented Norihei Miki in the lead role as Iemon and '60s-'70s Toho actress Masako Kyōzuka as Oiwa. It was co-directed by Miki and distinguished opera director and former noh actor Hideo Kanze. Of note is that the play was scripted by someone named Isamu Onoda - I have looked into this Onoda in the past, as this play is actually not the only time he's worked with Hirata, but as far as I can tell he is unrelated. Isamu Onoda was also born in Yotsuya, which is probably why he was chosen to script the play.

The reason I'm doing this post is because after a great deal of searching and becoming convinced there was no visual record of this play, I finally came across a booklet. Unfortunately these are the only pictures of this booklet that I have, it seems to only have come up for sale once. I believe Hirata's character's name is read as Yoemon Kamiya - running it through DeepL, Google Translate, and Papago all gave me the same result, with slight variations in vowel placement - but this role seems to be exclusive to this specific adaptation, as it doesn't come up in relation to Yotsuya Kaidan at all in any other capacity.¹ Obviously, this name is very similar to "Iemon Tamiya", and since this is a comedy, I'm wondering if that was an intentional joke.

The auction photos are not very clear, but to my surprise I was actually able to use Google Lens on it and come up with some more information about Hirata's role. It's not great information, but it's the only information I've ever heard: It seems like this Yoemon is some kind of drifter who comes to Edo and falls in love - with whom, I'm not clear; it may be Oiwa herself - and dies after going mad at some point in the play. The booklet describes him as "a playboy" if the translation is to be trusted.

The auction listing provides a few photos of Miki in the lead role, but as for Hirata? Well, you have to squint, but I'm fairly certain there is a photo of him in there.

Fairly certain. I've seen 103 of his films (not counting rewatches) and I could probably recognize him with my glasses off, but this is not a good picture.

Obviously, if I ever get my hands on one of those booklets, I'll either make a new post or overhaul this one with the information I get out of it. Until then, that's the extent of what I've found out from my extensive research into this play. It's tantalizing for me as a lover of all things Yotsuya Kaidan, but I just wish there were better scans of that booklet.

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¹ This is wild and irresponsible speculation, but there is a similar (it features a woman who is cursed to become disfigured, specifically with eye trauma, just like Oiwa) kabuki ghost story involving a character named Yoemon. It's called "Iro-Moyo Chotto Karimame", but more commonly referred to as "Kasane". I doubt this Yoemon was an intentional reference to that Yoemon, but maybe we've got some kind of Avengers-style expanded kabuki ghost story universe going on.