"The theater district provided people respite from hardscrabble lives. Theaters opened as early as eight o’clock in the morning and the day’s program ran through eleven o’clock at night.Note:
The Nigiwai-za was known as the Handkerchief Theater, for it was the favorite of the 'handkerchief women', who sewed and embroidered silk handkerchiefs in the cottage factories on the back streets. They wore around the neck silk handkerchiefs that were perks of the job. In the evening groups of them gadded about town, crimson, purple, blue, or peach-colored handkerchiefs gaily adorning their kimono collars. Young punks mingled with them, for which reason the term 'handkerchief woman' had a disreputable ring.
But the handkerchief women were the nucleus of the Yokohama's economy, and they vied to earn the most money. There were lavish spenders. The Kabuki was the favorite indulgence. Their handkerchiefs rendered the Nigiwai-za's pit a sea of color. They shouted in their peculiar voices the names of favorite actors.
In 1890s Yoshikawa Eiji, later a popular writer of period fiction, went with his grandfather to the Nigiwai-za. He was too young to appreciate the plucky lasses with the colorful kerchiefs worn chicly around the neck. But his grandfather, sake cup in the hand, reveled in the nubile audience and in the daylong play viewing. Eiji would play hooky from his Chinese classics lesson and go to the theaters."
(Burritt Sabin, 'A historical guide to Yokohama', ed. Yurindo, Yokohama, 2002, p. 102-103)
Nigiwai-za was located in Isezaki-cho Theater Street. The new Nigiwai-za stands now nearby Noge-cho (near Sakuragicho Station).
No comments:
Post a Comment