The Actor Bandō Mitsugoro as Onna San no miya with a Cat by Utagawa Toyokuni - 1811 National Museum in Krakow The Actor Bandō Mitsugoro as Onna San no miya with a Cat by Utagawa Toyokuni - 1811 National Museum in Krakow

The Actor Bandō Mitsugoro as Onna San no miya with a Cat

colour woodblock print on paper •
  • Utagawa Toyokuni - 1769 - 1825 Utagawa Toyokuni 1811

Today is the International Day of Theatre - on this occasion we have for you this beautiful ukiyo-e print from ONNA - Beauty, Strength, Ecstasy Exhibition in the National Museum in Krakow, enjoy! 

One of the talents for which great kabuki actors were famous was the ability to perform several roles in a single play. Bandō Mitsugoro III (1775–1831) was depicted by Toyokuni in a series of dance metamorphoses called hengemono. The actor, a typical tachiyaku, or performer of strong male roles, portrayed seven different characters in seven consecutive dances. The uniqueness and difficulty of this stage technique lay in quickly changing the mood, costume and method of acting, especially as Bandō Mitsugoro III took up the challenge of also playing female characters in the dances. The female character Onna san no miya belongs to the world of literary fiction, where she appears as the second wife of Prince Genji, the eponymous hero of a novel by Murasaki Shikibu.
- Beata Romanowicz