Komochi Yama'uba

Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1725; born in Echizen Province, present-day Fukui Prefecture) was leading dramatist for both ningyō jōruri (puppet theater) and kabuki. Born to a samurai family, he later moved to Kyoto, served in an aristocratic household, and studied at a temple—experiences through which he acquired a grounding in classical learning and the Chinese classics before turning to playwriting. In his twenties he became associated with the Uji-za in Kyoto and, in his early thirties, achieved success with jidai-mono (history plays). He subsequently began signing his libretti “Chikamatsu Monzaemon” (often with the designation sakusha, “author”), thereby making authorship newly visible within ningyō jōruri. From his forties he also wrote for kabuki; his turn to contemporary urban themes resulted in Sonezaki Shinjū (1703), a landmark that helped bring the sewamono (“domestic drama”) genre to prominence. Over the course of his career he wrote more than 150 works, and his distinctive balance of the fantastic and the real has exerted a lasting influence on literature and theater.

This jōruri text is Komochi Yama'uba, a work based in part on materials such as the Noh play Yama'uba. It depicts the birth story of Sakata Kintoki—better known as “Kintarō”—as well as the origins of Minamoto no Yorimitsu and his Four Guardian Kings, who appear in classical works such as Kumo no Hyōshi Mai, Shitennō Ōeyama Iri, and Tsuchigumo. Of its five acts, the final section of the fourth act later became the principal source for kabuki-buyō pieces known as Yama'uba-mono, and it was subsequently adapted into a wide range of dance-dramas throughout the Edo period.

(References)
Saishin Kabuki Daijiten (The New Kabuki Encyclopedia), supervised by Yoshihide Tomizawa and Hiroshi Fujita; editorial committee: Akira Kamiyama, Yuka Marumo, Ryuichi Kodama, Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobo, 2012.