Name Recognition

Abstract

Located almost exactly between Osaka and Tokyo on the old Tokaido highway, Hamamatsu City took on particular significance for kabuki aficionados after the playwright Kawatake Mokuami (1816–1893) immortalized it in his famous play Benten the Thief, in which chief bandit Nippon Daemon announces that he “was born at Hamamatsu in Enshū.”¹ This play, and many others, could be seen at the city’s Hamamatsu-za before the war. Like dozens of theatres, however, it was destroyed during the war and later renamed and rebuilt as a movie theatre. In 1950, under the new management of Ono Haruyoshi (1905–1981), the 700-seat theatre reverted to its prewar name and began to present live acts.²