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.) I initially posted this in August of 2024, but since I managed to actually snag a pamphlet from the performance - you can imagine I was quite excited about this - in November of 2025, I've overhauled it with more information from the pamphlet.
You can take a look at the entire thing for yourself on Internet Archive here.
This adaptation of Yotsuya Kaidan ran from September 3rd to September 26th at Tokyo's Toho-owned Imperial Theater. It was a comedy, with the very talented Norihei Miki 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, produced and supervised by Kazuo Kikuta, and scripted by Isamu Onoda, a composer of commercial music as well as songs for the stage. (I have looked into Isamu Onoda a great many times and as far as I can tell he has no relation whatsoever to our Onoda.) He may have been picked to work on this play because he was actually born in Yotsuya himself, but that's just speculation; in all likelihood, considering how prolific he was, he probably just landed the gig anyway and his birthplace was sheer coincidence.
Hirata plays a character who is original to this play named "Yoemon Kamiya". Now that I have the pamphlet, I can tell you a bit more about his character, but the thing that I want to talk about first and foremost is that apparently Hirata was never supposed to be in the play at all - he stepped in for Akira Takarada after Takarada got injured somehow:
He's the type who comes across as very serious and gentlemanly. He's been married to Yoshiko Kuga for about eight years now, and it's rare to find such a stable and harmonious celebrity couple.When I foolishly asked Yoshiko Kuga, "Is your husband always like that?", she simply replied, "Not really," and then brushed it off with a laugh.He's one year senior to Akira Takarada at Toho Studios. It was a strange twist of fate that he stepped in as a pinch hitter for Yoemon when Takarada was suddenly injured. However, he's recently been making remarkable progress in stage acting, and he's scheduled to appear in "The Wives of Tokugawa, Part 2" at the Toho Theatre in October.
In hindsight, this is actually very obvious just from looking at the pamphlet. Most of the other actors have color portraits where they're wearing makeup from their roles in the play, but for Hirata, they used his black-and-white Toho headshot that was, by my estimation, maybe five or six years old at that point. They probably didn't have time to get this pamphlet published with pictures of him in makeup. (It also makes more sense now that he himself describes how he was sweating bullets during his solo: singing onstage every night for weeks in a role that he wasn't even meant to be in does sound absolutely nerve-wracking.)
This was, in fact, the second time Hirata had ended up in a role that was originally meant for Takarada.
Will I post about Wives of Tokugawa someday? Maybe, who knows. For now, let's talk about Yoemon, who was apparently quite the rogueish, playboy type (I'm wondering if this might be the "like that" that the above quote was referring to). Pardon the wall of text while we take a look at a quick machine translation of the synopsis to this particular adaptation of a very old and storied play. Bear with me.
Samon Yotsuya, a senior retainer of the Yotsuya family in Banshu Ako, has two daughters. The older sister, Oiwa, who is very plump, is in a dreamlike state, anticipating her grand wedding ceremony with Iemon Tamiya, whom she has long yearned for...
Iemon is a foolish, timid man, a mere low-ranking samurai with a stipend of only thirty koku, a man who has never been popular with women. Yet, he is marrying the daughter of a high-ranking official, and moreover, the matchmaker is Lord Oishi, the chief retainer of the castle...
The wedding hall is filled with envy and jealousy from everyone. However, this marriage was a mistake, due to Samon's carelessness; he confused Iemon with Yoemon Kamiya, a close friend and neighbor with the same stipend and rank, but completely different in that he was a handsome man and the biggest playboy in the castle. This caused a huge problem.
Iemon, feeling that the situation was too good to be true, tried to back out, but his father pleaded with him, saying, "Now that the notification has been sent to the domain office and the lord's permission has been granted, as a high-ranking official of the domain, I cannot cancel it." Thus, Oiwa became Iemon's wife.
The younger sister, Osode, a beauty, has a fiance named Yomoshichi Sato, but his friend Naosuke is secretly in love with her. This Naosuke, in league with Yoemon, deceives the lady-in-waiting Kasane and sells off the beloved carnation incense burner of the lady of the house. Yoemon, displaying his playboy nature, takes advantage of Kasane, who is pregnant with his child and clinging to him.
At that time, the emergency drums resound throughout the castle, and news arrives from Edo of the Hangan's attempted assassination. The lord is ordered to commit seppuku immediately. The retainers are divided between those who want to defend the castle and those who want to commit suicide, and the council meeting is again filled with clamor and discord.
Determined to make a name for himself in Edo, Yoemon instigated Iemon to break into the treasury, and as a parting gift, they broke into the treasury, killed the guard, and escaped from the castle. By the time the search for them was underway, Yoemon encountered Kasane, who had pursued them, at the Kakogawa embankment."The treasury guard was my father, so who is the culprit...?"Yoemon, realizing he had been found out, laid his hands on Kasane.
Meanwhile, Iemon and Oiwa, a couple who were as close as two peas in a pod, helped each other along the way, and before long, true marital love blossomed between them.A year passed, and the peaceful Genroku era in Edo was filled with a decadent atmosphere. Today, various people are gathered at the Okuyama carpet teahouse. A woman who was once the daughter of a high-ranking official is now a popular teahouse girl, and men come to the shop looking for Osode, the number-one girl there.
Then, a woman named Oume, the daughter of Kihei Ito, a wealthy man from the Moronao family, arrived with her maid. In modern-terms, she was a free-spirited girl. Gonzo, a playboy, brought his companions and, trying to impress Oume and extort a reward from her family, staged a play, which was a resounding success. The plan worked too well, and Oume fell head over heels in love with Iemon.
Naosuke, who had changed his profession to an eel merchant and was living in Edo, met Osode again after a long time and, pressing the scar on his forehead that Osode had inflicted on him, said, "The wound you gave me aches, and my feelings for you ache, too..."
And then, as expected, Yomoshichi intervened. Having received a secret letter from Shozaburo Okuda, he attempts to deliver it to Lord Ōhoshi in Yamashina, but to deceive the enemy, he switches appearances with Shozaburo.
Meanwhile, Samon confronts his son-in-law, Iemon, on suspicion of robbing the treasury... Iemon mistakes Samon for Naosuke, and Naosuke mistakes Shozaburo for Yomoshichi... the two murderers reveal their evil smiles.
Meanwhile, Oiwa gives birth to a baby, and the accumulated fatigue from childbirth and faily life overwhelms her, confining her to her sickbed. Yet, she tries her best to serve her beloved husband, Iemon. Then, Oku, a maid from the Ito family, comes with medicine for Oiwa, saying, "I would like to offer you a drink as a token of gratitude for the other day, please come." At the Ito family's house, Iemon recieves the best hospitality, and the gold coins he is given as a thank you gift, along with Oume's seductive advances, are all part of Kihei's scheme to investigate the movements of the Yotsuya ronin.
Unaware of this, Iemon is overjoyed by Oume's proposal. He initially refuses, saying "I am a married man", but then Kihei says, "The medicine I gave your wife earlier, which I said was a miracle cure for postpartum illness, is actually a poison that will disfigure her face." Hearing Kihei's words, Iemon considers how to separate from Oiwa.
Gonzo's brother-in-law, Takuetsu, a masseur, is asked to house-sit, and is astonished to see Oiwa's face beginning to disfigure. While he is wondering what to do, he encounters Iemon, who, to create an excuse to leave Oiwa, tempts him with money to act as her lover. The greedy Takuetsu, despite his fear, took the money and ended up approaching Oiwa. As Oiwa's appearance deteriorated rapidly, however, he confessed all of Iemon's schemes. Iemon, who had also arrived on the scene, was so terrified that he tried to distance himself from Oiwa, but Oiwa stabbed herself in the throat with a blade stuck in a pillar. Iemon then killed Takuetsu, who was trying to escape in a panic, with a single stroke of his sword. It was Naosuke, ever-cunning, who then devices the plan to frame Oiwa and Takuetsu as lovers who committed suicide together, nailing them to a wooden plank and setting them adrift in the river. Kihei and Oume, who had come to peek into Iemon's house to see if he had successfully gotten rid of Oiwa, were then were then successively killed by Iemon, who was acting as if he were possessed by Oiwa's ghost and had gone mad.
Now, in Edo, living the life of a ronin, as was common in those times, even the exceptionally handsome Yoemon completely fell in love with a town girl he had only just met. His face turned pale, he became emaciated, and he wasted away. Every night, Otsuyu, the girl in question, would come with the sound of her clogs clattering, but in reality, she was possessed by the vengeful spirit of Kasane, whom he himself had killed at the Kakogawa embankment. Eventually, due to the mischief of the vengeful spirit, Yoemon went mad and died.
Osode, who began to suspect Naosuke of killing Yomoshichi, approached Naosuke herself and began living with him. Naosuke, an eel fisher, was working at the Sunamura Inbo-bori when he picked up a tortoiseshell comb tangled with hair and gave it to Osode. This comb was a memento from her sister Oiwa's mother, and Osode's suspicious deepened, thinking, "Could it be that my sister also...?"
Eventually, Yomoshichi, who had delivered the secret message to Yamashina and returned to Edo, encounters Osode, who had believed him to be dead. Osode learns the whole truth and heads to Honjo Jazan to avenge her father and sister. In the hermitage at Honjo Jazan, Iemon, who is hiding there, is tormented body and soul by the ghost of Oiwa, who appears every night, and lives each day in a state of illness. The ghosts call to other ghosts, and a parade of ghosts - led by Oiwa, and including Takuetsu, Samon, Shozaburo, Gonzo, Yoemon, Kasane, Oume and Kihei - torments Iemon, until he finally falls to Osode's avenging blade. As Iemon dies, the gentle Oiwa in heaven beckons him with her hand. Cleansing away his many wicked deed with the falling snow, Iemon ascends to heaven to be with Oiwa. On earth, the battle drums of the loyal retainers of Yotsuya resound loudly.
Well, that sounds like just about the coolest thing ever. What a tragedy that I haven't yet been able to find decent pictures of Hirata in this role. I would absolutely love to see him when he's being haunted by Kasane, probably made up kabuki-style in greasepaint to look all ghoulish. I think it's probably worth keeping my saved search to see if any other editions of this pamphlet ever come up for auction. Which brings me to my next point...
Although I was absolutely psyched to get my hands on the pamphlet, one thing remains a mystery: whether or not this is Hirata as Yoemon in the below picture (top of the left-hand page) from an auction listing. My pamphlet seems to have been a first edition, because there are others that I've seen that include actual pictures from the play.
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| I still think it's him. It's not a clear photo at all but I'm confident. |
So, even though I have a pamphlet now, there's not much else I can talk about aside from the story outline and the cast and crew. What I'd really like to do is show some pictures from the play, or hear from people who had seen it or been in it, but considering how long ago this performance took place, I'm wanting in the "personal anecdotes" category. I do have one, however:
It's a story from long ago, but in the "Yotsuya Kaidan Comedy" performed at the Imperial Theater, there was a scene where Norihei Miki, playing the role of Iemon Tamiya, appeared singing carefreely, "In the case of Francine..." I remember it not only because it was popular at the time, but also because of the darkly comical feel to it, which seemed to foreshadow the twisted position of Yotsuya the Ronin and the tragedy that awaited him afterwards.
The above quote is from a user named BANYUU, posting in 2013 on a thread discussing the song The Case of Francine, written by Goro Gō and Akira Imaizumi and sung by Yoko Shintani, about Francine Leconte, a woman who self-immolated in an act of anti-war protest. Not what I expected, but an incredibly valuable glimpse of what was going on during the actual play.
As always, if I find anything more, I will update this post.
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| Incredibly rare newspaper ad for the play. Credit to @takagi-mania on ameblo. |
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