The Kabukiza's programs for the month of February offer some of kabuki's biggest stars, including tachiyaku (male leads) Danjuro Ichikawa, Kikugoro Onoe and Kichiemon Nakamura. Jakuemon Nakamura, the distinguished 79-year-old onnagata actor, appears opposite Kichiemon in two plays in the evening program, and Ganjiro Nakamura, master of the gentle, realistic wagoto style of acting, also appears.
The afternoon program opens with the two-act play "Kezori," which centers on the adventures of a man from Nagasaki called Kezori Kuemon (Danjuro), who has become enormously rich from smuggling luxury goods. Danjuro also played this role last year at the Hakataza theater in Fukuoka, the city where much of the action takes place. The play begins spectacularly, with a ship occupying the entire stage. While waiting on board for the return of his men with the cargo, Kezori invites one of his passengers, Soshichi (Ganjiro), a merchant, to join him in a drink.
Soshichi tells his host that he, too, is from Nagasaki, and boasts of his affair with a courtesan named Kojoro (Shibajaku Nakamura), who works in the pleasure quarters of Hakata. Annoyed at finding that Soshichi is the lover of the woman he is interested in, Kezori has Soshichi and his servants thrown into the sea when the cargo is taken aboard.