Onnagata: The Art of Woman in Japanese Kabuki

The grace of a swan, subtle graceful movements, beauty, and finesse, these are all aspects of the Japanese Onnagata 1.The Onnagata (male actors portraying women) in Japan is viewed as the ideal women, according to the revered Misaki Isaka, their conduct “offstage is made responsible for artistry onstage, such as singing (ka), dancing (bu), and acting (ki)” 2. This is how Japanese society has come to view them over the years, but in reality, the Onnagata is a repressed individual that is not allowed to express their masculinity in any facet in society. This can be seen in a quote, within a short story, written by Yukio Mishima; “ He must live as a woman in his daily life, he is unlikely to be considered an accomplished Onnagata. When he appears on stage, the more he concentrates on performing this or that essentially feminine action the more masculine he will seem”3. The Onnagata, in Japan, is the ideal perfect woman who surpasses all women, but they are the contradictory, male representation of the male fantasy.

The manner in which, the Onnagata, essentially is in Japanese society has created a new ideal of gender in Japan and a new form of repression. "Kabuki would have died had not increasingly believable, instead of merely pretty, female characters begun to appear in the mature male kabuki that emerged in the 1650s … an open transition from gay theater to Gei Theater, gei being Japanese for art…Only actors past their adolescence could do and they were forced by law to cut their physical attractiveness" 4. The dictatorial members of the government at the time felt women and homosexual men had over stepped their bounds in theater, thus banning them. One reason for this is the essential make up of society for; women in the To...

... middle of paper ...

...the protests against this form of life, I never realized that this was the basis of their ideas.

19. Isaka, Misaki, "Box Lunch Etiquette”, Manners and Mischief, 56. (Ayame a famous Onnagata from the Tokugawa period who laid out decorum for Onnagata. He said one should show dedication to their every action including eating and one should never leave their onstage role. They are to become onna in every way and to be beautiful even in old age. Ayame told them to embody real women and to look mischievous with a chaste mind and should never be seen to purposely make the present audience laugh for it is disgraceful, their most important role is to appear chaste).

20. Mishima, Yukio “Onnagata” Death in Midsummer, 1966, 146 (Onnagata can never capture the complete sense of femininity, for it is a piece of a brief moment in time, simply a fragment of a way of life).