The Heat and the Fancy of the Asakusa Kannon Theatre: The Place and Time of Beniryoku and Mikasa Banriko, 1917-1924

The Heat and the Fancy of the Asakusa Kannon Theatre: The Place and Time of Beniryoku and Mikasa Banriko, 1917-1924

The recollection begins with the Kannon Theater in Asakusa. Kuroroku Sato took on this theater, and in order to introduce Mariko Mikasa, whom he had fallen in love with, to the world, he wrote one new play each month and ran the box office. The audience was enthusiastic, but the reputation of the literary world was sluggish, and despite the efforts of his patrons, the gears did not mesh until the very end. The harshness of the performing arts is evident between the lines: even with enthusiasm and brilliance, if the time and the place are not right for the work to be received, it will not produce results.

Asakusa's six wards of Asakusa at that time were a city of omnivores, where movie theaters, light entertainment, and opera rubbed shoulders with each other. While the Asakusa operas of the Taisho period attracted audiences with their low prices and novelty, the stage was driven by the consumption speed of new productions, and audiences moved from one theater to another in search of the next exciting performance. Then the Great Kanto Earthquake struck, and both maps and tastes were reconfigured at once. The monthly tour-de-force productions may have generated buzz, but they had little chance of reaching a sustainable rating. The size of the Kannon Theater and the speed of the city overtook individual passion.

While eventually shifting his focus to a single brush, Benritsu also sought avenues in film: in 1923, he went to Europe for further study, and in 1924, he became the director of Toa Kinema. He tried to promote Manriko in films, but she was unable to ride the wave, partly due to rumors that she was a victim of her own family's favoritism, and she left the stage when she gave birth to a baby. Whether on stage or in the movies, light will not take root unless the three elements of the person promoting, the person being promoted, and the place that receives it all come together. The excitement in Asakusa was certain, but the circuits of the times were beginning to turn in a different direction.

What this little episode shows is the ruthlessness of the conditions that lie in the shadow of a success story. The magnetic field of the place, the mood of the time, the mood of the audience. If any one of these is missing, passion turns into spinning out of control. The attempt of Benritsu and Manriko was defeated, but the sparks that were frayed there left faint reflections on the subsequent progress of film and literature. It is the temperature that stuck to the backstage of Asakusa that still conveys the contours of the 1920s season.