Katsura Beidanji, a rakugo performer who will soon be 67 years old, appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on November 5th. He spoke about his memories of his father, the rakugo performer Yonekichi, who passed away 10 years ago at the age of 89.
Yonekichi passed away in the year he turned 90. If he were alive this year, he would have been 100. His disciples included Katsura Shijaku and Katsura Zakoba. "I became a storyteller when I was 20 years old, and I was his 15th disciple. There wasn't much conversation between us as parents; everyone thought of me as their father. He was everyone's father, so we didn't have any special conversations as parents and we rarely went on trips together. I was always writing manuscripts at home," he recalls.
"It was tough being compared to Yonekichi, but I'm used to it now," he says. Yonekichi would become cheerful when he drank alcohol. Whenever he went to Gion-machi in Kyoto, he would go up to a teahouse. He would call out to his young disciples, "Come up, come up," and say, "Even if you don't understand, just watch it there." He recalls listening to old stories and dancing at the teahouse, and watching various performing arts, thinking, "All of this is art from the Kamigata region. It's all connected."
He himself had four disciples. These disciples frequently visited Yonekichi's home and looked after him in his later years. It was around this time that they were finally able to have a conversation like father and son. Until then, Yonekichi had always been on his toes, going from stage to stage and from broadcasting station to broadcasting station, but when he was no longer able to come up with rakugo and had to spend time at home, he finally realized, "Oh, it's my father."
