The wife, the woman,

the country, the city,

the good, and the bad.
By Kui Sia Goh, University of
Essex
EA171-40FY Western Theatre
in Context 2017

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Abstract

In writing this essay, I want to explore the contextual point of view of

gender in the Western theatre, I have chosen Restoration Comedy and

the Eastern Theatre and within the field I have chosen, Kabuki Theatre.

The plays that I have decided to analyse are The Country Wife for

Restoration Comedy play and The Woman Student for the Kabuki Theatre

play. Kabuki in Japanese is which if you separated each kanji

word, it reads as singing, as dance and as skill. Both

types of theatre during the time they were written in, only men were

allowed to be performing in theatre, for a long time (during the period

that is being analysed) there were men who specialized their craft on

creating the role of a women, especially young adolescent boys, this is

because they havent it puberty, so they would have smother face, a

thinner voice a more feminine face and this would allow them to portray

the role of a women efficiently. In Japan, they called this Onnagata and

during premodern times Edo era (1600-1867) women were banned

from performing; within modern times Meiji era (1868-1912) although

women could perform in Kabuki Theatre, it was still very rare for women

to be on stage performing. The reason women were banned from

performing in Kabuki Theatre, was because kabuki (which could be called

art of dancing and singing), an entertainment provided by women who

were prostitutes, these women used to please men in the early years, it

was considered akin to prostitution (Maki, 2016:5), which later ended

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up getting banned, exiled and shut down. Similarly, women were given

the right to be actresses on stage mid-17th century, but not as sexual

equality, actresses were on stage as a sex object; even to the point of

being raped on stage (Thomson, 1995:208).

Synopsis

Restoration comedy - The Country Wife

1675, this plays first performance was in the Kings Company at the

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. It was written by William Wycherley, who had

created this Restoration Comedy piece on an exaggerated life of London.

This play follows three different stories that link together, the first plot

followed the story of Horner who lied about how he is sexually impotent

to win the trust of the towns husbands to persuade their wives to sleep

with them. The second plot of the story tells the story of Mr. and Mrs.

Pinchwife who are from the country side and had recently arrived to

London; Mrs Pinchwife wanted to get into the life of the city and end up

falling in love with Horner. In the third plot, Horners friend, Harcourt,

slowly broken the engagement of Alithea (Pinchwifes sister and her

engaged fianc Sparkish) by deceiving Sparkish and wooing her affection.

In the end, the plots all come together, Horner and Mrs Pinchwife had to

lie in order love each other, Mr Pinchwife agreed to the wedding between

his sister and Harcourt and still her husband could not unveil Horners

secret so everyone lived happily ever after.

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Kabuki Theatre play - The Woman Student

This play was written by Kawatake Mokuami 1816 1893, this story is

also an over dramatize for the period of its time (Meiji era, 1868 - 1912).

The play is about this woman who had a male name, Shigeru, who

disguised herself as a man to study. However, her father grew old, ill and

unable to work, so she stole some money from her teacher and rushes

back home to get her father the money she just stole to buy medicine and

to take care of himself. One the way to her fathers house, she met the

riceshaw puller, Nao, and payed him to take her to an inn half way to her

fathers house. Nao found out that Shigeru was a woman after bathing

together in a bath house, Shigeru then payed Nao to not tell anyone

about her disguise. He gave back the money in exchange, he wanted

sexual pleasure from Shigeru, but she refused so he blackmailed her

which forced her to have sex with him. Shigeru went to her fathers house

and left the money with him, and Nao followed her and waited until he

thought it was safe to steal the money. And he murdered her father. Nao

was caught. Shigeru changed her name to Oshige, which is a female

name, and pretended to be Masamichis fianc. But Nao came back and

claimed that she is his wife which Oshige agreed as she wanted to

revenge her fathers death, she did, she got him drunk. However, at the

end, she killed herself because of guilt and sin took over her.

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Western and Eastern comparison

Womens opinion on men

In the eastern country, being filial piety is one of the most important

study from Confucius. The basic concept of the principle is that parents

gave life to their children, give them food, clothes, education etc. This

mean that the children they raise are in debt to their parents which in

return, the children will take care of their parents like their parents once

did. In addition, it is very important to have a son in the family as they

will get married to a woman and the woman they marry will heir the

name of the husbands family therefore the wife must take care of the

husbands family Filial piety contributed to a moral order in which

families were central to human identity and to a family system organized

hierarchically so that men and older generations had considerable power

over women and younger generations (Teon, Aris, 2016, china-

journal.org). Filial piety is what drove Shigeru to disguised herself as a

male student to study in Tokyo, it is also the reason she stolen money

from her teacher, Jinbo Masamichi, to give the money to her father as he

was getting older and more ill. She wanted to repay her debt and atone to

her sin for [her] lack of filial piety. Also, when Nao asked Shigeru for

sexual pleasure, Shigeru refused straight away and ordered Nao to leave.

However, Nao threatened her that he was going to tell the police

(Therefore the use of the word Blackmail). If he would have gone and

told the police, they would not only found out about she was pretending

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to be a man, they would also find out she had stolen money from her

teacher. If she went to prison, her plan of giving the money to her father

to be a good daughter would have been ruined, so she stopped him and

agreed to the deal. In The Country Wife, the married women talked about

not hanging out with Horner because of pride and honour they bear

for their husbands. However, no female in this play successes on holding

their end of the wedding vows, no one except for Alithea who throughout

the play had tried to defend her fiancs reputation and resisted

Harcourts flirting and told him to stop: I would not be unjust to him, I

have no obligation to you and I had no patience to hear [Harcourt]

(Wycherley, A2 S1 L226). This suggested that both Shigeru and Alithea

knew their moral and their vows and their wills are strong, unlike other

women in the plays.

Mens ways of lust

Within both plays show how men used cheap tactics to have pleasure with

the women. In The Country Wife, Hornets method is to abuse (which

mean deceive) the husband and [afterward, hell] disabuse the wives

(Wycherley, A1 S1 L126). He was using the fact that people know that he

recently travelled to France and requested Quake to spread the rumour

that he was a eunuch because of a surgeon in France. This rumour would

let the husbands in town think it would be safe to let their wife with

Horner said that, the husbands who before would not be acquainted with

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me out of jealousy (Wycherley, A1 S1 L122) would have no worries to

leave their wives alone with him and not having to worry about their wife

doing unfaithful things. This is shown in the dialog between Quake and

Hornets lines: And to the married women of this end of the town as As

the great ones; nay, as their own husbands. (Wycherley, A1 S1 L16) This

suggest that Hornet thinks married women will be the easiest targets for

them to sleep with him because if they agree to both keep it a secret, no

one will know about their affair. In The Woman Student, Nao wanted to

have pleasure with Shigeru by giving back the money she had offered for

his silence in accordance of her disguising herself as a man, however she

refused as this would bring dishonour to her family. After he was rejected,

he blackmailed her by saying surely you know. Theres a law now

forbidding citizens to pose as member of the opposite sex. As stated

before, men within the plays used cheap tactic like deceiving and

blackmailing to have pleasure with other women, even if they refused or

it is against their moral and vows.

Women cross dressed as a man

Within both plays, two of the female characters disguised themselves as a

man. As mentioned before, The Woman Student is about Shigeru who

disguised herself as a male student to receiving an education that will

allow [her] to achieve [her] ambition (Mokuami, 263:11) and because

her father is a teacher himself, she wanted to assist her father at his

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school and continue his legacy, as shown here: students who are

enrolled at his school (Mokuami, 264:18). However, in The Country Wife,

the reason Mrs. Pinchwife dressed up as a man was because Pinchwife

wanted to please his wife to let her go to the theatre but he did not want

Hornet to find about his wife, he dress her up in the suit [they] are to

carry down to her brother, little Sir James (Wycherley, A3 S1 L106).

These demonstrated how the two women in the plays cross dressing could

have differences and similarities in their reasoning, you could say Shigeru

disguised herself as a man in her own will and Mrs Pinchwife was not

given a choice; but on the other hand, they both did it to pleasure the

men (her father and her husband).

New haircut, new chapter

In Japan, when a person cut their hair drastically, it means a new chapter

in life and no looking back to the past. This tradition continues to the

modern drama of Japan, however, in the modern day it mostly applies for

women, as there is no longer anymore samurais. If a samurai was to

abandon his societal role, either to join the priesthood or to choose life as

a peasant (J Sensei, 2017, learnoutlive.com) so the samurai would hold

his knot and cut it off to symbolise the declining of his rank and social

status. This is related to both main protagonists in The Woman Student,

firstly in the riceshaw puller, Noa, used to be a samurai who used to be

wealthy. However, due to the era changing and samurai no longer being

Leiter, Samuel L and Brandon, James R (2004) Masterpieces

needed as there was no wars to

fight, and Noa not used to do any

hard work, or doing any other jobs,

eventually he went poor and

started doing riceshaw pulling. In

the performance of this play, he

would have similar length hair to

signify the changes in his social standard as stated before if a samurai

was to become a pleasant, he would have his hair cut off. In Shigerus

case, when she decided she wanted to disguised herself as a man, she cut

her hair short which signified she had leave her female life behind and

gave herself a new name Shigeru.

Genders viewpoint on each other

Men have many opinion about woman and they have their ways of how

men should treat woman in their respected era. Some examples from The

Country Wife, Women are like soldiers, made constant and loyal by good

pay rather than by oaths and covenants (Wycherley, A1 S1 L410) this

indicates that the men in that era think that a woman will stay loyal to

you as long as you are rich, What ladies? The vizard-masks, you know,

never pity a man when all's gone, though in their service.(Wycherley, A1

S1 L164) Vizard-masks were used by prostitutes as a fashionable wear,

this also make sense as alls gone mean the mans money and fortune.

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In The Woman Student, even though Shigeru had stolen some money,

but she had committed such a crime all because of her father. In my

opinion, she is not a greedy person. However, it is shown that Nao is a

very greedy person as he confessed to had killed her father and took the

money for himself. He also mentioned Ill cut my ties with you and

abandon my works of love. (Mokuami, 273:40)This demonstrated within

these two plays, money plays a big part of distrust in a relationship

between genders. I think that Wycherley wanted the audience to think

women are only driven by money, but Mokuami used the play to show

that men are driven into murder as greed took over him.

Disguising themselves to achieve their goals

In both plays, there are some character who disguise themselves as

someone else and could successfully keep their fake identity. In The

Woman Student, no one knew that Shigeru was a woman, even to the

point of the innkeepers daughter was in love with Shigeru, as Shigeru

said: What a splendid meal! But she neednt have gone to so much

trouble. (Mokuami, 263:30). I think of this because in the era that it was

set in, you would not see a woman paying for a man unless she really

liked Shigeru. In The Country Wife, both Mrs Pinchwife and Harcourt had

disguised themselves successfully, Mrs Pinchwife was able to convince her

husband that [Alithea] cannot look [Pinchwife] in the face, though

through a mask and also request him to put out the candle (Wycherley,

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A5 S1 L97) so he cannot see who was that he was talking to as she wore

his clothes, put on a mask and a cloak and she was able to go to Horners

house. The other disguiser in this play is Harcourt, although it did not

seem to work on Alithea and Lucy, it worked on Sparkish because he

said: This is [Harcourts] brother (Wycherley, A4 S1 L89) when it is

clearly not. This suggested that both male and female disguise

themselves to deceive, or persuade other to get what they want, whether

it was to escape, or to allow yourself to do thing you cannot achieve as

yourself.

Conclusion

I wanted to show I have the writers perspective on how different the

two-time periods are, and how women and men were portrayed within the

play. I also learned new things about Restoration Comedy and Kabuki

Theatre and reminded myself of the old teaching that I learnt from my

elders and discovered where it originated. It has been very interesting to

research on a topic that I feel strong and see how it used to be in the past

and see the differences and similarities; the good and the bad. What I

learned from this research is that even though these two types of plays in

their respected era, they were going through their own restoration; some

of the struggles of gender and equality had improved, but some

difficulties still remain now today.

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Isaka, Maki (2016) Onnogata A Labyrinth of Gandering in Kabuki Theater.

University of Washington Press.

Leiter, Samuel L and Brandon, James R (2004) Masterpieces of Kabuki

Eighteen Plays on Stage. University of Hawaii Press.

Leiter, Samuel.L (2013) From the London Patents to the Edo Sanza.

University of Alabama Press.

Sensei,J (12 July 2011). Drama: Cutting Off Ones Hair In Japan. AD 16

March 2017. learnoutlive.com

Teon, Aris (2016) Filial Piety () in Chinese Culture. AD 22 March 2017.

china-journal.org

Thomson, Peter (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of The Theatre (Ed.

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