The Marvellous Speech of the Medicine Peddler・Uirō Uri EXPLAINED (1718)

Uirō Uri ("The Uirō Peddler") is a brief aragoto scene belonging to the Kabuki Jūhachiban collection of plays of the Danjūrō line of actors. It was first performed by Ichikawa Danjūrō II in 1718, and it has been a showcase of an actor's elocution since then.

In the XX century, it was revived by Ichikawa Sanshō, posthumously known as Ichikawa Danjūrō X, in 1922, and later by Ichikawa Ebizō IX, later Ichikawa Danjūrō XI, in 1940. The version seen here and performed regularly was created for Ichikawa Danjūrō XII in 1985 by the playwright Noguchi Tatsuji.

You can read the English translation of this play, by Laurence R. Kominz, in the book "Kabuki Plays on Stage Vol 1: Brilliance and Bravado": https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/kabu...

The only actors who have attempted the role of the uirō seller in the last century are: Danjūrō X, Danjūrō XI, Danjūrō XII, Danjūrō XIII, Onoe Shōroku IV, Kataoka Ainosuke VI and Ichikawa Shinnosuke VIII.

The performance shown here is from May 2006, during the Dankiku festival at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, with a cast including Ichikawa Danjūrō XII (the uirō seller), Onoe Kikugorō VII (Suketsune), Nakamura Baigyoku IV (Soga no Jūrō), Bandō Mitsugorō X (Asahina), Nakamura Tokizō V (Maizuru), Ichikawa Danzō IX (Kajiwara Kagetoki), Kawarasaki Gonjūrō IV (Kajiwara Kagetaka), Ichimura Manjirō (Ōiso no Tora), Ichimura Kakitsu IX (Kewaiza no Shōshō) and Kataoka Ichizō VI (Chinsai).

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