Righteousness, Love, and Red Pride: Portrait of a Woman Called Agemaki (Mid-Edo Period to the Present)

Righteousness, Love, and Red Pride: Portrait of a Woman Called Agemaki (Mid-Edo Period to the Present)

In the glamorous fictional town of Edo Yoshiwara, there was a woman who was most dazzling. She was Miuraya no Agemaki. While based on a real-life courtesan, she was eventually sublimated into a symbol of literature and entertainment in the 18th Kabuki play "Sukeroku Yui Edo Sakura. Agemaki was not just a beautiful prostitute. She was the "ideal woman" that the common people of Edo dreamed of, with her education, pride, chivalry, and single-minded love hidden within.

The story takes place at Miuraya, the most prestigious of the Yoshiwara. Sukeroku, the main character, appears as a beautiful, irrepressible man, but his true identity is Soga Goro Tokimichi. In order to find his father's avenger, Kudo Suketsune, Sukeroku has been living in Yoshiwara under a false identity. Sukeroku daily picks fights and tries to find out the famous sword "Tomokirimaru" that his avenger possesses. Behind his foolhardy behavior burns an unquenchable flame of revenge.

Sukeroku's lover is a courtesan named Ajimaki. A wealthy merchant named Ikyu is relentlessly courting her, but she resolutely rejects him and remains in love with Sukeroku. Although she is angered by Sukeroku's lawlessness and weeps, she accepts his determination to take revenge and continues to watch over him. In this figure, the soul of "righteousness," which transcends infatuation, resides.

On stage, Agemaki wears a gold brocade kimono and high clogs. Once they appeared on stage, it was as if they were straight out of an ukiyoe painting. The Edo aesthetic sense resides in every step they take as they parade on stage as oiran (courtesans). The actor who plays the role of an agemaki is required to express not only beauty but also dignity and strength at the same time.

The most famous performer of this difficult role was Nakamura Utaemon VI. In his performance, dignity and nobility coexisted with a bewitching sexuality. Baiko Onoe's performance of Ujomaki was soft and full of subtlety of emotion. Today, Tamasaburo Bando has inherited this lineage, preserving the tradition while adding a sophisticated modern sensibility. His performance is not a mere reenactment, but a re-creation, a masterpiece of stage beauty.

At the end of the story, Sukeroku is present at the scene where he confronts his foe. Although she is a courtesan, she stands dignifiedly alongside the men, holding her emotions in check and shaking them to the core of her being. She is not only a woman of the town, but also a person of duty and soul.

Even today, when she appears on stage, the theater is silent and the audience's eyes are drawn to her every move. She is no longer in Yoshiwara. But the spirit of the oiran is still alive in the costumes, in the voices of the onnagata, and in every note of the dialogue.

Ajimaki is the name of the most glamorous and proudest woman ever born in Edo.