Holiday for Kaminari, the Thunder God (Kaminari no Yasumi)

ca. 1768

This three-sheet composition illustrates the structure and lively atmosphere of a typical Kabuki theater in the late Edo period. The audience sat on three levels and enjoyed snacks and socializing during the daylong performances. Actors often made dramatic entrances along a walkway like the one seen at the left. The artist Utagawa Toyokuni designed this triptych so the central page could be swapped out to show different productions on the stage; at least two other versions of the center page exist. This version shows the theater’s first performance of the 1793 season, a play called Gozen gakari sumo Soga, which featured the first large-scale onstage sword fight. Choreographed sword sparring, called tachimawari, would become a standard element of Kabuki theater.