In Kabuki Drama
Ishikawa Goemon is the subject of many classic kabuki plays. The only one still in performance today is Kinmon Gosan no Kiri (The Golden Gate and the Paulownia Crest), a five-act play written by Namiki Gohei in 1778. The most famous act is "Sanmon Gosan no Kiri" ("The Temple Gate and the Paulownia Crest") in which Goemon is first seen sitting on top of the Sanmon gate at Nanzen-ji. He is smoking an over-sized silver pipe called a kiseru and exclaims "The spring view is worth a thousand gold pieces, or so they say, but 'tis too little, too little. These eyes of Goemon rate it worth ten thousand!". Goemon soon learns that his father, a Chinese man named So Sokei, was killed by Mashiba Hisayoshi (a popular kabuki alias for Hideyoshi) and he sets off to avenge his father's death.
He also appears in the famous tale of the Forty-seven Ronin, first staged also in 1778. In 1992, Goemon appeared in the kabuki series of Japanese postage stamps.
Read more about this topic: Ishikawa Goemon
Famous quotes containing the word drama:
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1859–1924)