The play begins with the first performance by TEN-ICHI and his troupe since his return from the recent world tour which had won him so much fame and the title “King of Magic”. […] To impress the audience, TEN-ICHI invites a girl up onto the stage to inspect his million dollar top hat. The girl, KATSUKO, however, happens to be an amateur magician, and is so thrilled by this opportunity that she forgets herself and discloses the tricks of the magician’s repertoire, throwing the whole stage into utter confusion.[1]

In October 1952, a new musical opened at Tokyo’s Imperial Theatre (帝国劇場, Teikoku Gekijō, known colloquially as 帝劇, Teigeki). Called in Japanese 天一と天勝 (Tenichi to Tenkatsu), and starring Fubuki Koshiji (越路吹雪, Koshiji Fubuki), the musical was a highly romanticised account of the relationship between real-life turn-of-the-century stage magicians, Tenichi (松旭斎天一, Shōkyokusai Tenichi) and his star pupil Tenkatsu (松旭斎天勝, Shōkyokusai Tenkatsu) from their first meeting in 1895 to Tenichi’s death in 1912.

What is remarkable is not that the story was given a romantic gloss for the stage but that by the time it premiered, Japanese audiences knew, not least from the writings of people who had known Tenichi and Tenkatsu, that the reality was very different.[2] Not coincidentally for a country trying to restore its pride in itself following its defeat in war, it was a version that drew a veil over the darker aspects of the treatment of women in Japan in the pre-modern era, conscious that its audience would include US servicemen and other Westerners.

In this article, I draw on newspaper reports of the Tenichi troupe’s 1901–1904 tour of North America and the British Isles to show the distance between the reality of Tenkatsu’s life with Tenichi and the version presented to Western audiences both at the time and in the 1952 musical.

Ten-Katsu is the female member of the troupe who is featured. On the bill, she is put down as the “dainty Japanese beauty” and the phrase is descriptive. Small of stature, with regular features, she is lithe and graceful; and in her richly flowered kimona [sic] suggests one of the figures with which her own people decorate their bamboo screens and fans.[3]

Tenkatsu Shōkyokusai (1886–1942) was born Katsu Nakai (中井カツ, Nakai Katsu) in Tokyo in 1886,[4] twenty years after the Meiji Restoration ushered in the modernisation of Japan along Western lines. As Tenkatsu, she would one day become known as the ‘Queen of Magic’ (魔術の女王, majutsu no joō), so famous and celebrated that her name would become synonymous with Western-style variety entertainment in Japan. Key to understanding Katsu Nakai’s journey to becoming Tenkatsu Shōkyokusai is understanding that the process of modernisation ignited by the Meiji Restoration was highly granular, and, in particular, most women saw little initial improvement in their lives or their status in Japanese society;[5] although Meiji legislation gave girls equal rights to access to education, the purpose of education for girls was to prepare them for their future intended roles of ‘good wife, wise mother’ (良妻賢母, ryōsai kenbo).[6]

For the rural poor, the situation was even worse. Industrialisation brought with it a huge demand for the transfer of labour from the field to the factory. However, families were loath to send away their sons and heirs, so the burden fell disproportionately on the daughters of the rural poor. Recruiters toured the countryside offering advance payments to families in return for contracts of service of five to seven years for their daughters—a form of indentured servitude that, by 1913, had seen upwards of 800,000 young girls removed from their rural homes and sent to work in industrial cities. This was accompanied by a huge increase in the incidence of TB, which spread freely in enclosed, crowded workplaces and was then transmitted to the countryside by female workers returning to their family homes after they became too sick to work. An added hazard was the prevalence of recruiters who claimed to be looking for factory workers but in reality were recruiting for brothels, which, by 1904, were home to over 40,000 sex workers.[7]

Set against these retrograde forces were the actions and lives of individual Japanese women who sought roles in the public sphere traditionally reserved for men. From the earliest days of the Meiji Restoration, these would include educators and political activists and later extend to lawyers and doctors.[8] However, arguably, the most visible were female entertainers.

THE GREAT DRAGON TROUPE. The character of the Japanese entertainment which opened last evening in the Round Room of the Rotundo is not exaggerated in the advertisement where it is called “the greatest novelty of the season” […] A female member of the company, Mdlle. Omotu, astonished the spectators by an ascent of a telegraph wire...[9]

Japanese acrobatic troupes, usually under the control or management of European impresarios, began touring outside Japan almost as soon as laws preventing Japanese people from travelling abroad were lifted in the 1860s. I refer readers to Pernille Rudlin’s Digital Museum of Japan-UK Show Business for a comprehensive study of this phenomenon.[10] As with most forms of traditional Japanese entertainment, these acrobatic troupes had an actual or pseudo-familial character, with, in the case of the latter, junior members representing the next ‘generation’ and often assuming as part of their stage name the family name of the founder of the troupe, with the acknowledged ‘heir’ to the present leader of the troupe assuming the latter’s name in full upon their ascension to that role. This is perhaps most visible in the modern context in the names of leading contemporary Kabuki actors such as Ichikawa Danjūrō XIII (十三代目市川團十郎, Jyūsandaime Ichikawa Danjūrō, born Takatoshi Horikoshi (堀越孝俊)), the thirteenth actor to inherit the Ichikawa Danjūrō name.[11] This succession process was often accompanied by the full familial adoption of their chosen heir by the troupe leader under the Japanese system of adult adoption (成人養子縁組, seijin yōshi-engumi), which is still a common practice in family firms in Japan.[12] As we will see later, in the case of female troupe members, this situation was complicated by other forces at work.

Ah! You think it is all rather vague, and not much like a real butterfly. Well, perhaps not. But it is like enough at the distance at which you are looking. If you do not like it you shall come here and try when I have done. Perhaps you will do it no better; but if you will suggest anything I will try and adopt it, for all want the butterfly to fly.[13]

From the outset, these touring acrobatic troupes blurred the line between acrobatics and what we would recognise as stage magic, with the famous butterfly trick (浮かれの蝶, ukare no chō) being a staple element of performances by many troupes.

I refer readers to Mitsunobu Matsuyama’s articles and Chris Goto-Jones’s book Conjuring Asia for detailed histories of stage magic in Japan.[14] It is suffice to say here that it has a history going back many centuries; however, following the Meiji Restoration, Japanese performing troupes emerged that foregrounded magic tricks drawn both from the traditional Japanese canon and, increasingly, drawing on Western traditions. In the West, Japanese stage magicians (and Western magicians who pretended to be Japanese[15]) became particularly well-known for their dexterity and use of sleight-of-hand, something that inside Japan, was known variably as tezuma (手妻) meaning ‘lightning hands’ or wazuma (和妻), ‘Japanese lightning, two terms that have become synonymous with Japanese stage magic in the modern era.

Chief among these new post-Meiji Restoration magic troupes was that formed by Tenichi Shōkyokusai.

In his country Ten-Ichi is accounted a great magician and a wealthy man. It is said that he has a fortune of 500,000 yen, which is equivalent to making him a many-times millionaire in this country. He lives in a palace in the environs of the Japanese imperial city and on his extensive estate has erected a go-down, or storehouse, in which he has curiosities estimated to be worth 250,00 yen.[16]

Tenichi Shōkyokusai (1853–1912) was a flim-flam man of the first order; he was also, not coincidentally, a consummate stage magician. Born Makino Hachinosuke (牧野八之助, Hachinosuke Makino), the son of a samurai family that lost its status as a result of the Meiji reforms, he became a Buddhist monk, only to be thrown out of the sect when it was discovered that he had co-opted its esoteric exercises, including fire-walking, as the window-dressing of a fortune-telling act. He would later adopt the name Shokyo Hattori (服部松旭, Hattori Shokyo).

Many elements of the stories that Tenichi later told about his introduction to stage magic and early career have been comprehensively debunked by Mitsunobu Matsuyama.[17] So, while Matsuyama’s research leaves open the possibility that Tenichi received some of his education in stage magic from a Western magician called Johns (or Johnson ョ子ンスー, Jon-su), the only thing that is certain that after a period as an itinerant professional storyteller (講談師, kōdan-shi) and sword-walker (剣渡り師, ken watari-shi), by 1888, he had formed his own magical troupe, the Tenichi Troupe (松旭斎天一一座, Shōkyokusai Tenichi Ichiza), and had begun to climb the ranks of the Japanese entertainment scene in Tokyo. By 1895, he was near its summit and had diversified his business interests to include a tempura restaurant in Tokyo’s Monzen-Nakacho (門前仲町). It was in that year that he met a young girl who had just started working as a server at the restaurant. Katsu Nakai.

THE MAGICIAN APPEARS. About the time that she was at the height of her popularity Ten-Ichi, the Mikado’s magician, saw her, and became one of her most ardent admirers. He offered to teach her the mysteries of his art if she would become one of his troupe and travel round the world with him.[18]

Katsu Nakai’s father, Eijiro Nakai, was a pawnbroker, but his business failed, and aged 9 years old, Katsu was put out to work. My research has been unable to determine if this was on a simply for-hire basis or under a contract like that of the daughters of the rural poor who became factory workers, characterised by an advance fee paid to her family and a contract period of 5 to 7 years. If it was the latter, then Tenichi, as the owner of the restaurant to which she was contracted, would have had a high degree of control over where she worked and at what, which would cast subsequent events in an interesting light. All I can say for certain is that, seeing how dextrous she was and recognising the appeal that her talents and youthful good looks would have for an audience, Tenichi transferred her from the restaurant to his magic troupe (in some accounts, this occurs in 1895, in others, 1897). Later events would show that there may also have been other, darker emotions at work. At some time between 1885 and 1901, Katsu’s sister Waka Nakai and adopted sister Toshi Kitashiima, would also join the troupe.[19]

For Katsu’s part, she appears to have been initially ambivalent but quickly she recognised that her skill set her apart from even the other apprentices in the Tenichi Troupe, and here was an opportunity to be more than a food server and eventual dutiful wife and wise mother. However, almost immediately, the attention that Tenichi showed his new apprentice provoked the jealousy of other members of the troupe, principal among them, Tenichi’s adopted son and successor, Tenji (松旭斎天二, Shōkyokusai Tenji; his adopted name was Katsuzo Hattori, (服部勝蔵, Hattori Katsuzo)). Katsu began to suffer bullying (which is to say, excessive bullying—the bullying of juniors by seniors in entertainment troupes, alas, remains depressingly commonplace in Japan[20]) and attempted suicide.

What is not certain is the degree to which Katsu’s adolescent state of mind was adversely affected by the fact that Tenichi at some point began to pressure her to become his concubine (妾, mekake). Concubinage, widespread in Asia in the period and, under different names, a feature of many other societies, particularly within the colonial empires of the European powers, was one of the practices that Western missionaries working in the newly opened Japan were particularly active in trying to end. Missionaries and their Japanese converts taught the virtues of monogamy, and it was written into the Meiji legal code; however, this did little, at least initially, to curb the practice.[21] Katsu Nakai was in her early teens; Tenichi Shōkyokusai was over forty.

Concubinage appears to have been a feature of some of the other Japanese troupes that toured the West that featured female performers,[22] although it is impossible at this remove to determine where on the line between consent and coercion lie the relationships we know existed between, for example, female performers and Western impresarios who managed the touring troupes. What we can say is that the relationship that developed between Katsu Nakai and Tenichi Shōkyokusai, into which Katsu felt pressured to enter, was at once coercive and transactional, in that Katsu believed that her route to achieving the independence that she believed becoming a successful performer would bring was through remaining by Tenichi’s side as his apprentice, and the latter required becoming his concubine.

According to Katsu’s account, as recorded in a biography written by a member of her troupe 60 years later,[23] she finally agreed to become Tenichi’s lover in 1902, when she turned 16 years old (Tenichi was 49).

By then, the troupe was touring America and Katsu Nakai had become Tenkatsu Shōkyokusai.[24]

YOKOHAMA. The well-known juggler Shokyokusai Tenichi will leave this port for America today by the steamer Peru, accompanied by five men and three women. The party will stay in America for one year.[25]

Two of the three female performers in the 1901 Tenichi troupe were Katsu and her little sister, Toshi Kitajima (her surname was different as she was adopted out, a common practice in Japan in this period), who were known within the troupe as Tenkatsu and Tentoshi, respectively.[26] The male performers—records show there were four not six as reported in the newspaper quoted above (at least by the time they arrived in the Continental USA)—were Tenichi himself, his adopted son and successor Katsuzo Hattori (troupe name Tenji), the party’s manager and translator, Hajime Yamaguchi, and a second child performer (alongside Tentoshi) Kiyoshi Takase (高瀬清, Takase Kiyoshi, troupe name Tensei) (who would go on to have an extended career in England on stage and screen[27]).[28] The identity of the third female performer is disputed. Evidence from the early part of the tour suggests that she was Waka Nakai, Katsu’s natural sister, as her troupe name was given in the US press as ‘Tenwaka’. However, evidence from the end of the tour, three years later, suggests that she was instead Matsuko Aso, Katsuzo Hattori’s wife. What is certain is that, by 1904, Matsuko was with the troupe and Waka Nakai was not.[29]

I do not propose to describe the tour in detail. Of interest to us here is that the troupe performed in elaborate traditional Japanese costumes and soon discovered—as other Japanese performers had before them (see below)—that Western audiences favoured a short, quick-paced show, in contrast to the mannered, stately performances (lasting several hours) that characterised Japanese traditional theatre. More significantly, we see evidence of Tenichi’s gift for flim-flam at work, most particularly in attaching his name to the name of any Japanese personage that was then in the news. In this context, we see at least one report stating, entirely spuriously, that the troupe had arrived in the US as part of the entourage of Japanese Prime Minister Prince Hirobumi Itō (伊藤博文, Itō Hirobumi), who was then visiting the US, and had taken the opportunity presented by the prince taking a break from his travels to perform shows in theatres.[30]

I also detect this tendency in stories told by Tenichi directly concerning Tenkatsu because it is at this time that Tenichi began telling the press that the three female members of his troupe were geisha, stories that would grow in the telling until they would reach a level of elaboration that, not coincidentally, resembled opera.

GEISHA’S ROMANCE. TALE OF JAPANESE LOVE AND PATRIOTISM. WAITING FOR PEACE. Ten-Katsu, a sweet-faced geisha, who belongs to the troupe of Japanese magicians now appearing at the Alhambra, has a strange and romantic history […] Her humble parents decided early in her life that the best course open to them was to place her in a geisha society […] The youth and wealthy of Tokyo were attracted by her. None could sing better than she, none could play the samisen to compare with her, and none was so graceful in the dances of the East. Rich men in Tokyo wanted to marry her but Ten-Katsu refused all offers, for she had given her heart to a handsome youth who lacked riches, but in her estimation made up in charm of person for his want of this world’s goods.[31]

Although Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly was supposed to have already had its London premiere by the time that the above article appeared in the English press (August 1904), in the event, it was not ready and would not receive its London debut until the following year.[32] However, the short story on which the opera was based had already been brought to the stage as a ‘straight play’ by American writer–actor–producer David Belasco a full four years earlier and after a smash-hit run in New York in 1900, by 1901 was touring the country. This was, of course, also the year that the Tenichi Troupe began its own American tour. What’s more, Belasco and the short story’s author, John Luther Long, followed up the success of Madame Butterfly with a second Japanese-themed play, the spectacular (and critically drubbed) Darling of the Gods, which premiered in New York in 1903 and by the time the Tenichi Troupe arrived in England in the summer of 1904, was playing to packed houses in London.[33]

Added to this was the coincidental presence in North America and Europe the year that Belasco debuted his Madame Butterfly play of a real-life geisha-turned-actress, Sadayakko Kawakami (川上貞奴, Kawakami Sadayakko, 1871–1946).[34] Although Sadayakko arrived in North America in 1899 as a member of the progressive theatre company run by her husband Otojirō Kawakami (川上音二郎, Kawakami Otojirō), she had spent most of her life to that date as a geisha—including a period when her patron was the same Prince Hirobumi Itō to whose entourage Tenichi would later claim to belong. Quickly dubbed (against her wishes) the ‘Japanese Sarah Bernhardt’, Sadayakko, called ‘Sada Yacco’ by the Western press, became the chief draw of the Kawakami company, exemplified by her starring role in what would become a staple of the company’s repertoire during its European tours, The Geisha and the Cavalier.

The 1899 tour of the US was followed by a 1900 tour of Europe that included performances in London and at the 1900 Paris Exposition. It was during this first tour that Otojirō Kawakami discovered for himself something that Tenichi would find out to his own cost: the Western taste for exotic costumes and short performances.

For foreigners, it is necessary to put on something unusual with splendid costumes. That means we must do period pieces and use dance. Moreover, we must perform them quickly and in a limited time. That is the way foreigners like it. They wouldn't come to see Japanese plays if we neglected their taste.[35]

The Kawakami company’s first tour ended in 1900; however, it was back the following year for an extended tour of Europe that stretched into 1902. It was during this latter tour that Puccini made a point of trying to see the Kawakami company perform as often as he could and even tried (unsuccessfully) to arrange an interview with Sadayakko. His aim was to study the traditional Japanese koto music that Sadayakko played on stage; he later used some of it as a model for elements of the music in his version of Madame Butterfly.[36]

In short, Japonisme, in general, and the romantic ideal of the geisha, in particular, was all the rage in fin de siècle Europe. So, of course, Tenkichi, the flim-flam man, would fabricate a backstory for Tenkatsu that recast her as a geisha in the romantic mode. No matter that the reality of the life of a geisha was very far from this ideal (ironically, an accurate parallel with the real Tenkatsu story).[37] There even appeared in the US press a purported interview with Tenkatsu, almost certainly fabricated by Tenichi, or at the very least stage-managed by him, via the interpreter Yamaguchi, in which Tenkatsu lavishly praised Tenichi for having saved her from her life as a geisha.

But I fear I shall only be what I am, a poor geisha girl. Yet I bow in willing submission before my great and good protector Mr Ten-Ichi, and thank him day and night without ceasing for having looked upon me with a favoring eye and for having lifted me on wings of steel and canvas to your country.[38]

By the time the troupe arrived in England, with the Russo-Japanese War underway, Tenichi had even added a patriotic element to the story—geisha Tenkatsu’s young lover had become a soldier ‘fighting for his country before Port Arthur’ and Tenkatsu a benefactress to the widows and orphans of soldiers killed in the conflict.[39]

The English press ate it up; it played into every prejudice their readers had about not only Japanese but all Asian women (which is not to say that reporters believed the story, of course; just that it made good copy). It also diverted attention from the real-life relationship between Tenichi and his much younger apprentice. So, it should come as no surprise that the 1952 Teigeki musical version of the Tenkatsu–Tenichi story would also give its romanticised version of Tenkatsu a young lover for the same reason. In keeping with the musical’s presentation being diametrically opposed to reality, that young lover was arguably the person who in reality resented the presence of Tenkatsu in the troupe the most: Tenji, Tenichi’s adopted son.[40]

ALHAMBRA. The “ENTENTE CORDIALE”. New Ballet To-night, at 10.15, and ALL THE YEAR ROUND. Varieties, Urban Bioscope, with the Russian Army, TEN-ICHI TROUPE, last week; Bros. Egbert, etc.[41]

The Tenichi troupe left England in late September 1904, sailing from Liverpool, bound for New York, on board the SS Majestic. From passenger lists, we can identify Tenichi, Tenkatsu, Tenji, Tentoshi, Tensei (Kiyoshi Takase), Hajime Yamaguchi, and Matsuko Aso.[42] However, at least three of their number would not continue on to Japan: Tenji, Matsuko, and Tensei.

Tenji’s purpose in remaining in America was to further his study of Western magic. He and Matsuko would go on to form their own troupe and take it on a tour of Europe before finally returning to Japan in around 1910 and rejoining the Tenichi troupe.[43] It is worth noting here that this period of separation is also a feature of the plot of the 1952 Teigeki musical, recast as Tenichi sending Tenji away when he realises that Tenji and Tenkatsu are in love with each other, fueled by the jealousy stirred up by his own—in the musical, unacted upon—feelings for her. (It is worth stating here that, in the Japanese synopsis of the musical, it makes clear that at one point in the drama, Tenichi asks Tenkatsu to marry him, but is rebuffed and leaves it at that; this is left out of the English synopsis, perhaps for brevity’s sake—or perhaps for other reasons.) Naturally, the play makes no mention of Matsuko, Tenji’s wife.

Tensei—Kiyoshi Takase—would later claim that he had been “left stranded” at the end of the Tenichi tour; in another version of the story, he refused to return to Japan after his contract ended.[44] Whatever the truth, there was clearly an incident that precipitated his separation from the troupe that happened while the troupe were in America on their way home. This, coupled with Tenji’s decision to remain in America to study Western magic, hints at a bust-up between Tenichi and Tenkatsu on one side and Tenji, Matsuko, and Tensei on the other, perhaps over Tenkatsu’s status in the troupe. However, this is speculation—and, as we have seen, Tenji would eventually return to Japan and the troupe. In time, Tensei would find his way back to England, where he would find work under his own name as a stage magician before finally finding real success as a movie actor in the 1920s. It seems likely that he was also a member of Tenji’s troupe, and this is how he came to return to England.[45]

Upon their return to Japan, Tenichi and Tenkatsu rebuilt the Tenichi troupe and debuted a new show centred firmly on Western magic—for which they wore Western costumes (arguably, the flipside of wearing Japanese costumes to appeal to a Western audience). Tenkatsu was a sensation, something aided by the fact that, fueled by three years of eating a Western diet, she had grown to be a head taller than the average Japanese woman, something that, coupled with the athletic build she had developed as a performer, was particularly effective as a spectacle when she added Western dancing to her repertoire.[46] As stated above, by 1910, they had been rejoined by Tenji. However, this reunion would be short-lived as within two years, Tenichi Shōkyokusai, the King of Magic, would be dead.

The death of Tenichi in 1912 precipitated the final split between Tenji and Tenkatsu. In keeping with tradition, Tenji took over the Tenichi troupe name as Tenichi Shōkyokusai II.[47] Tenkatsu, finally able to assert her independence, established her own troupe under her own name (天勝一座, Tenkatsu Ichiza) along with the manager of the Tenichi troupe, Tatsunosuke Noro (野呂辰之助, Noro Tatsunosuke), whom she married (almost certainly a marriage of convenience to assuage the prejudices of conservative theatre bookers and investors).

Across the next twenty years, in performances across Japan and the rest of East Asia, Tenkatsu would establish herself and her troupe as the definition of Japanese Western-style variety entertainment by adding dancing and dramatic and musical plays to the troupe’s repertoire. By 1921, the troupe was even employing its own baseball team, the Tenkatsu Baseball Team (天勝野球団, Tenkatsu yakyūdan)[48]—one of the earliest professional baseball teams in Japan—as a marketing gimmick, challenging local teams to games to promote appearances as they toured, just as touring performance troupes did in America, something Tenkatsu would have seen for herself during the Tenichi troupe’s 1901–1903 US tour.

Tenkatsu took her troupe back to America in 1924, but never returned to England. She adopted her niece as her successor, handing control of the troupe over to her in 1936 (after a long and lucrative farewell tour), transferring to her the Tenkatsu name and returning to being simply Katsu Nakai. In her farewell address, reproduced in the programme made to accompany the tour, she said, I have had many sad and happy moments, and when I look back on them, I am filled with tears of emotion.

本年も又来年も永久に御愛顧御後援をお願ひ申上げますと舞臺の上から御挨拶を 申上げて居りましたが最後の御挨拶を申上げる時が参りました。 永い卅八年の舞臺 生活十一歳の時からスターと致しまして今日迄敷知れぬ悲しい事又數知れぬ嬉しい 事、顧みますと感慨無量と申しませうか、色々な感情の涙がこぼれて参りますが冷 静に考へて見ますと藝術には時は有りませんが女には年が御座います。この際潔く舞臺を退きまして本名の中井かつに立戻り自由の身となりましてこの 非常時の場合何かの御役に立ちたいと考へて居ります。私を愛して下さいました天勝ファンの方々 Good-by! 又中井かつとして皆様に御 目にかります。松旭齋天勝.[49]

Her first husband Tatsunosuke Noro having died in 1927, after her retirement, she began a relationship with university professor Ichirō Kanazawa (金澤一郎, Kanazawa Ichirō), whom she married in 1941. However, their time together was brief: Katsu Nakai, the erstwhile Tenkatsu Shōkyokusai, Queen of Magic, passed away as a result of oesophageal cancer in 1944.[50]

That Teigeki would pick the Tenichi–Tenkatsu story as the subject of its sixth musical was not a surprise given how readily it lent itself to spectacle and glamour; that in order to do so, the producers would have to ignore the darker aspects of the story was equally unsurprising, particularly in a country still reeling from defeat and sensitive to anything that cast it in a negative light. In much the same way, it was no surprise that the audience accepted the deception, although they knew it to be so. It was like a magic trick that the audience didn’t want to see explained. They knew it was a trick, but they were happier enjoying the illusion.

Ah! You think it is all rather vague, and not much like a real butterfly. Well, perhaps not. But it is like enough at the distance at which you are looking. If you do not like it you shall come here and try when I have done. Perhaps you will do it no better; but if you will suggest anything I will try and adopt it, for all want the butterfly to fly.[51]

For all want the butterfly to fly.

Jamie Barras, May 2025

Acknowledgments: thanks once again to Pernille Rudlin for creating and curating the Digital Museum of Japan-UK Show Business, without which this and my earlier Wata-san piece would have been much poorer.

Resources

Programme for the 1952 Teigeki Musical Tenichi to Tenkatsu (天一と天勝): here

Notes

[1] Synopsis in English printed in the programme for Tenichi and Tenkatsu (天一と天勝, Tenichi to Tenkatsu), Imperial Theatre, Tokyo, October–November 1952. Author’s own collection. There are some differences between the Japanese and English versions of the synopsis, both of which are published in the programme, but these may simply represent things cut from the English synopsis for brevity’s sake. The most striking is perhaps the omission in the English version of the fact that Tenichi acts on his feelings by asking Tenkatsu to marry him, which she rebuffs—in the English version, Tenichi seemingly never acts on his feelings.

[2] This information is contained in the biography of Tenkatsu: Ishikawa Gashō, 松旭斎天勝 (Tōkyō: 桃源社, 1968). Isakawa was a member of Tenkatsu’s magic troupe and his biography is presented as Tenkatsu’s own account of her story as told to Ishikawa and others.

[3] New York Times, 19 March 1903.

[4] I have drawn on various sources for biographical information for Tenkatsu Shōkyokusai, using sources in Japanese for preference; see, for example, Mai Nakazawa, ‘Who was the Female Magician Tenkatsu Shōkyokusai? (女性奇術師・松旭斎天勝（てんかつ）とは？), National Theatre Research and Documentation Department, https://artexhibition.jp/topics/features/20241222-AEJ2535235/; and articles by historian of Japanese stage magic, Mitsunobu Matsuyama at: https://www.tokyomagic.jp/labyrinth/index.htm, accessed 25 May 2025. In this, I am taking my lead from Pernille Rudlin at the Digital Museum of Japan-UK Show Business  (https://ninjin.co.uk/), which is itself an excellent source of information in English on all things concerning Japanese entertainers who toured Western countries. Note that ‘Katsuko’ as used in the 1952 musical is simply an affectionate version of ‘Katsu’, the ‘ko’ (子) character meaning ‘child’.

[5] Mara Patessio, ‘Early Meiji Women and the Public Sphere.’ In Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan: The Development of the Feminist Movement, 1–32. University of Michigan Press, 2011. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.9340032.4.

[6] Junko Kiguchi, ‘Japanese women’s rights at the Meiji Era’, IIS World Congress: Frontiers in Sociology, July 5–9, 2005, Stockholm, https://www.soka.ac.jp/files/ja/20170525_141432.pdf, accessed 25 May 2025.

[7] Saarang Narayan, ‘Women in Meiji Japan: Exploring the Underclass of Japanese Industrialization’, Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 2016, 8(02). Retrieved from http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=1369, accessed 25 May 2025. The fate of the daughters of the rural poor in late-Nineteenth Century Japan famously provided the plot of the early episodes of the hit 1982 Japanese morning drama (asadora) Oshin (おしん): https://www2.nhk.or.jp/archives/articles/?id=C0010292, accessed 25 May 2025. The tricking of women into prostitution in Japan made a brief return following the defeat of Japan in the Second World War, when the Japanese government recruited under false pretences young women to serve as sex workers for occupation forces: Robert Kramm, ‘Haunted by Defeat: Imperial Sexualities, Prostitution, and the Emergence of Postwar Japan’, Journal of World History 28, no. 3/4 (2017): 587–614. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26537623.

[8] See Note 4 above.

[9] ‘The Great Dragon Troupe’, Saunders’s News Letter, 28 December 1869.

[10] See Note 5 above, final reference.

[11] https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/10/dfd791a97b0c-kabuki-actor-ebizo-assumes-distinguished-stage-name-danjuro.html, accessed 26 ay 2025. Thanks go to Pernille Rudlin for providing an explanation for this element of Janese traditional entertainment.

[12] Vikas Mehrotra, Randall Morck, Jungwook Shim, Yupana Wiwattanakantang, ‘Adoptive expectations: Rising sons in Japanese family firms’, Journal of Financial Economics,2013, 108, 840-854, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.01.011

[13] ‘The Butterfly Trick’, Morning Post, 22 February 1867.

[14] For Matsuyama, See Note 5, second reference; Chris Goto-Jones, ‘Japanese magic and magic in Japan’ in ‘Conjuring Asia: Magic, Orientalism, and the Making of the Modern World’ (Cambridge University Press, 2016), 265–303.

[15] Goto-Jones covers Western magicians who pretended to be of Asian heritage in depth; for a specifically Japanese example, see ‘Okito’ (Theodore Bamberg), Note 18 above, second reference, 289.

[16] ‘New Japanese Magic’, Walker Lake Bulletin, 3 October 1902.

[17] See Note 5, second reference.

[18] ‘Geisha’s Romance’, Daily Express, 26 August 1904.

[19] https://www.tokyomagic.jp/labyrinth/matsuyama/trap-01.htm, accessed 26 May 2025.

[20] Wang Ziying, ‘Beyond the Spotlight: Unveiling the Takarazuka Revue’s Complex Legacy of Art, Gender, and Society’, Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, 2024, 29, 528–534.

[21] See Note 6 above.

[22] See, for example, the story of ‘Omotu’ (Note 13 above): https://ninjin.co.uk/omoto/, accessed 26 May 2025.

[23] See Note 2 above.

[24] It is worth noting here that Katsu Nakai would continue to be the name that she travelled under. See entry for Katsu Nakai, passenger lists for the SS Majestic, leaving Liverpool 25 September, 1904, UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960; arriving New York, 5 October 1904, New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957, ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com Inc. Operations, accessed 12 March 2025. Tenichi Shōkyokusai travelled as ‘Shokyokie’ Hattori.

[25] ‘Miscellaneous Notes’, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 22 July 1901.

[26] See, for example, the long article ‘A Wonderful Juggler from the Orient’, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 September 1901. It is worth pointing out here that this small party was a fraction of the size of the troupe that Tenichi had built up by 1900 for performances in Tokyo, which numbered in the dozens.

[27] https://ninjin.co.uk/takase-kiyoshi/, accessed 26 May 2025.

[28] The names of the troupe members are given in the list of new arrivals at the Finlen Hotel, Butte, Montana, October 1901: ‘At the Finlen’, Butte inter mountain (Butte, Mont.), 14 October 1901. The troupe members are listed under their troupe names—Tenichi, etc.—while the interpreter Yamaguchi is listed simply as ‘H Yamaguchi’.

[29] Tenwaka, whose name is given in US press reports and the Finlen Hotel list (See Note 28 above) is said to be Waka Nakai by Matsuyama, see Note 19 above, based on Japanese prefectural passport records. Matsuko Abe, Tenji’s wife, is said to be present for the whole tour in, for example, the Tenichi and Tenkatsu 1952 programme (see Note 1 above). Matsuyama disputes this. What is not in dispute is that Matsuko Abe and not Waka Nakai was with the troupe in 1904, as can be discerned from passenger lists corresponding to their departure from the UK in September 1904 (See Note 24 above).

[30] ‘Maguire Captures Japan’, Butte Miner, 14 October 1901. Tenichi would also later claim to have met Prince Ito while he was visiting the US and received from him some calligraphy: https://www.tokyomagic.jp/labyrinth/matsuyama/testimony-07.htm, accessed 26 May 2025.

[31] See Note 19 above.

[32] Postponed debut of Madama Butterfly: ‘Puccini’s Madame Butterfly’, Daily News (London), 15 June 1904.

[33] Belasco, Puccini, and Madame Butterfly: Arthur Groos, ‘Cio-Cio-San and Sadayakko: Japanese Music-Theater in Madama Butterfly’, Monumenta Nipponica, 1999, 54, 41–73. https://doi.org/10.2307/2668273; Belasco, Long, and Darling of the Gods: Lydia Edwards. "A Tale of Three Designers: The Mystery of Design Attribution in Belaso and Long’s The Darling of the Gods Staged at His Majesty’s Theatre, London, in 1903." Theatre Notebook, 2015, 69, 97-112. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/636742. See also: Arthur Groos, ‘Madame Butterfly: The Story’, Cambridge Opera Journal, 1991, 3, 125–158. http://www.jstor.org/stable/823604. One review of a 1914 revival of the play called it ‘gorgeous claptrap’: Tatler, 28 January 1914. That 1914 production included an actress of genuine Japanese heritage in a minor role; I tell her story here: https://www.ishilearn.com/wata-san, accessed 27 May 2025.

[34] Shelley C. Berg, ‘Sada Yacco in London and Paris, 1900: Le Rêve Réalisé’, Dance Chronicle, 1995, 18, 343–404. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1567837.

[35] Quoted in Leonard C. Pronko, ‘After Hanako...’, Asian Theatre Journal, 1988, 5, 86–91. https://doi.org/10.2307/1124026.

[36] See Note 34 above, first reference.

[37] Amy Stanley, ‘Enlightenment Geisha: The Sex Trade, Education, and Feminine Ideals in Early Meiji Japan’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 2013, 72, 539–562. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43553525. And references therein.

[38] ‘Little Geisha Girl Appalled at Corset’ Evansville Journal, 31 July 1902.

[39] See Note 27 above.

[40] See Note 1 above.

[41] ‘Little Geisha Girl Appalled at Corset’ Evansville Journal, 31 July 1902.

[42] See Note 24 above.

[43] https://ninjin.co.uk/ten-ji-troupe-1907-1909/ and https://www.tokyomagic.jp/labyrinth/matsuyama/tenich-3rd.htm, accessed 27 May 2025.

[44] Kiyoshi Takase: stranded story: ‘New British Star’, Shield Daily News, 2 November 1929; refused to return to Japan story: ‘A Newcomer’s Chance’, Manchester Evening News, 3 May 1929.

[45] See Note 28 above.

[46] Tenkatsu was 155 cm tall; the average height of Japanese women of the time was 146 cm; see Note 5 above, first reference.

[47] I have seen it variably written that Tenji took over the Tenichi troupe, and Tenkatsu did. I have gone for the former explanation in line with Tenji’s adoption of the Tenichi II name. The two versions of events can be reconciled simply by considering there to have been a split in the troupe, some of its members staying with Tenji, others leaving with Tenkatsu and Noro.

[48] Allen Guttmann and Lee Thompson, ‘Japanese Sports: A History’ (University of Hawai’i Press, 2001), 136. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqsmj.

[49] Note from Tenkatsu at the end of the programme produced to accompany the farewell tour, 1934. 松旭斎天勝・引退記念パンフレット (reprint). Author’s own collection.

[50] See Note 5, first reference.

[51] See Note 14 above.