Namiki Gohei I

▪ Japanese playwright

born 1747, Ōsaka

died Feb. 27, 1808, Edo [Tokyo]

      playwright of Kabuki kyōgen (farces) who left more than 100 plays written during a 40-year career.

      He studied with the dramatist Namiki Shōzō and by 1775 was chief playwright for the Hayakumo-za Kabuki theatre, where he introduced the system of naming each play with its own title and contributed to the improvement of the status of dramatists. He also helped establish a new genre, sewamono (“plays about contemporary life”), in the Kabuki repertoire, which had dealt primarily with historical themes. In 1794 he moved to Kyōto to work for the Miyako Theatre. While there he started the custom of presenting two separate plays, a historical drama and a domestic drama, on the same program rather than one long play.

      Namiki's works are valued for their logical plot structure and emphasis on rational rather than emotional content. Some of his most famous plays are Godairiki koi no fūjime, Kanjin kammon tekuda no hajimari, Sanmon gosan no kiri, Natane no gokū, Satokotoba awasekagami, Sumida no haru qeisha katagi, and Tomigaoka koi no yamabiraki.

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