Reputation among Audiences

"O-edo shibai nenjiu gyoji""Hu-bun kiki"
Artist:吟光　 O-ban, Colour print
Ritsumeikan Art Research Center(no. arcUP2045)

After a performance, specters enjoyed criticizing about the program of that day eating soba in front of a theater. Both critical and favorable review were useful for the theater promoters to make next performance better. Therefore, the theater often sent some people as spies to those places and gather specters' reputation and proactively reflected them to their performance. The word Sakaimachi Fukiyacho Goro means the period before Edo sanza, theaters that were officially permitted to perform Kabuki, was forced to move to Asakusa Saruwaka-machi by Kyoho Reforms, and Nakamura-za and Ichimura-za were located in Sakai-machi and Hukiya-cho.

[Glossary]
　Uchidashi
[Related Topics]
　「観客の楽しみ」