He was born in Nihonbashi, Edo, into a family running an indigo-dyeing shop. His childhood name was Katsujirō and his common name Genzō. He grew up helping his father in the dyeing trade, but he loved theater from birth. Visiting Edo's lively playhouses, he came to wish to become a kyōgen writer, someone who writes the scripts of plays.
Aiming to become a playwright, he became a pupil of the popular writer Sakurada Jisuke I. He went on to study under several more writers, such as Kanai Sanshō and Namiki Gohei. Changing his name from Sakurada Hyōzō to Sawa Hyōzō and then Katsu Hyōzō, he spent nearly thirty years in junior work assisting senior writers.
He is said to have married Okichi, daughter of the kabuki actor Tsuruya Nanboku III. The two are described as a love match, and their eldest son was born the next year. This son would later become Tsuruya Nanboku V. This tie to an acting family later led to his taking the name Tsuruya Nanboku as a writer.
After his long apprenticeship he became for the first time a tatesakusha, the chief writer who directs the making of a play's script. By then he was already in his late forties. He wrote a work for Bandō Hikosaburō III and at last gained the position of shaping a whole play by his own ideas. The real career of this late bloomer began here.
Tenjiku Tokubei Ikoku Banashi, written for Onoe Matsusuke I, became a huge hit. Quick costume changes in which the actor transformed in an instant and tricks using water won acclaim. It is said that Nanboku and his colleagues spread a rumor in Edo that the quick changes were Christian sorcery, causing a stir in which the magistrate's office investigated, but this only drew bigger crowds.
Working with Onoe Matsusuke, he perfected the kaidanmono, frightening plays in which ghosts appear. Together with stage-set craftsmen he devised clever stage tricks that made ghosts suddenly appear and vanish. He also worked with wig makers to create new wigs, widening kabuki's means of expression through visual inventions too.
He took over the name Tsuruya Nanboku, which his wife Okichi's father had used, becoming Tsuruya Nanboku IV. A name that had belonged to an actor was thus inherited by a writer. Through his success it became widely known as a writer's name, and the fourth in particular is called Ō-Nanboku, the Great Nanboku, to distinguish him from the others.
In Osome Hisamatsu Ukina no Yomiuri, Iwai Hanshirō V won fame by playing seven roles by himself. Together with actors such as Ichikawa Danjūrō VII and Onoe Kikugorō III, Nanboku established the kizewamono, plays vividly depicting the commoners and villains living in the city of Edo.
He presented Sakurahime Azuma Bunshō. In this story a noble princess falls in status and survives in the life of the town, boldly mixing the world of the high-born with the world of the back streets. Unexpected plots weaving together completely different worlds, and humor with a sting, are seen as key features of Nanboku's works.
His masterpiece Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan was first staged at the Nakamura-za in Edo. In this story Oiwa, betrayed by her husband Iemon, becomes a ghost and takes revenge, and it was performed over two days together with Kanadehon Chūshingura. The scene in which Oiwa's hair falls out and the trick of the flipping door panel won acclaim.
He died in Edo. It is said that before his death he wrote a booklet to be handed out at his own funeral, making it a work full of humor poking fun at himself. To the end he kept a playwright's playful spirit. His grave is at Shunkeiji in Honjo. His style was carried on by Kawatake Mokuami and others, and his works are still staged today.
Uesugi YōzanDaikokuya KōdayūKitagawa UtamaroMogami TokunaiŌtsuki GentakuRyōkanMatsudaira SadanobuKatsushika Hokusai
People of the Edo period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.