This very interesting, beautifully designed book is an essay on the art of onnagata, the kabuki actor playing female roles, through the person of one of them, Jakuemon, the 84-year-old Living National Treasure, still performing at the Kabuki-za and elsewhere.
The art of the onnagata, it is said, is seen only in the mature actor. As scholar Donald Shively has explained, traditionally the actor required "a more abstract method of interpretation. Thus he singled out the most essential traits of a woman's gestures and speech and gave to these a special emphasis in much the same way that puppets exaggerate human gestures to appear alive."
In the strictly ordered world of early kabuki during the Tokugawa Period, such exaggeration was already there -- dress, address and style (particularly for women) were rigidly codified. The onnagata's basic equipment was at hand. He needed only to accentuate, intensify and emphasize these traits that society insisted upon.