"The Strange Tale of the Martyrdom of Ebumina Nagasaki"

...Since the ban on Christianity in 1638 (Kan'ei 15), puppet theater and kabuki were not allowed to seriously deal with Christianity. Only a few old joruri plays were performed as "Amakusa Gunkimono" (Amakusa Shiro Shimabara Monogatari) (published in 1666) and "Keisei Shimabara Kaeru Gassen" (written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, November 1719, Takemotoza), as well as its variant "Tenjiku Tokubei Sato no Sugatami" (written by Chikamatsu Hanji, April 1763, Takemotoza), and these cannot be called orthodox Christian plays. In modern times (after the lifting of the ban in 1873), there was a trend towards Nanban tastes, and first appeared Kinoshita Mokutaro's series "In front of the gates of the Nanban temple" (1909), "Ebumi: A strange tale of the martyrdom of Nagasaki" (1913), "Amakusa Shiro" (1914), "Tsunenaga" and "The plaintiff" (all 1928), which depicted the suffering of modern people in a layered manner. Other works include Oyamauchi Kaoru's "Christian Nobunaga" (1926), Okamoto Kido's "The Christian House" (1913), Nagata Hideo's "Sawano Chuan" (1927), and Matsui Matsuba's "The Virgin Mary (Santa) (Mary)" (May 1923 at the Meijiza Theater).

*Some of the terminology used in "The Strange Tale of the E-Fumiki Nagasaki Martyrdom" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…1638年(寛永15)キリシタン禁制以来，人形浄瑠璃，歌舞伎ではまともにこれを取り扱うことが許されず，わずかに〈天草軍記物〉として，古浄瑠璃の《天草四郎島原物語》(1666年刊)や《傾城（けいせい）島原蛙合戦》(近松門左衛門作，1719年11月竹本座)，またその変種である《天竺徳兵衛郷鏡（さとのすがたみ）》(近松半二作，1763年4月竹本座)などが行われたにすぎず，正統な切支丹物とはいいがたい。近代に入って(明治6年解禁後)，南蛮趣味の流行もあり，まず木下杢太郎の連作《南蛮寺門前》(1909作)，《絵踏（えぶみ）長崎殉教奇談》(1913作)，《天草四郎》(1914作)，《常長》《訴人》(以上1928作)などが現れ，近代人の苦悩を重ねあわせて描いている。ほかに小山内薫の《吉利支丹信長》(1926作)，岡本綺堂の《切支丹屋敷》(1913作)，長田秀雄の《沢野忠庵》(1927作)，松居松葉の《聖母（サンタ）･（マリア）》(1923年5月明治座)など。…

※「《絵踏長崎殉教奇談》」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

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