Okuni Kabuki Screen

Unknown artist

Momoyama ・17th

Kyoto National Museum

This screen depicts an early performance of Okuni kabuki's Chaya Asobi (Spree at the Teahouse) on the Kitano stage, featuring an actor with a sword, a tea-house woman, and a clown, accompanied by flutes and drums. The Okuni kabuki troupe came from Izumo Province (present-day Shimane Prefecture) and began performing their kabuki odori ( kabuki dancing) on the Noh stage of Kitano Shrine in 1603. Because the stage depicted on this screen is thought to be the Kitano stage, the work is assumed to have been painted after 1603. On the stage we see an actor holding a sword, a woman of the tea-house (sitting by the pillar), and a saruwaka clown wearing a towel over his head. These three characters indicate that we are looking at a performance of Chaya Asobi (Spree at the Teahouse) , the representative play of the Okuni kabuki troupe. The musicians pla