was a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese actor and comedian from present-day Hakata-ku, Fukuoka

Hakata-ku, Fukuoka

is one of the seven wards of Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is best known as the location of Fukuoka's main train station, Hakata Station.-Geography:...

, who led the Kawakami Theatre Troupe ("Imperial Japanese Theatrical Company") on successful overseas tours in 1899-1901. This was the first Japanese theatre company to tour the West.

In his teens, Otojiro left his home at Fukuoka and sailed to Osaka, then proceeded on foot to Tokyo, where he became a student and political activist. Under the influence of philosopher Chomin Nakae, he began staging theatre productions as an outlet for his political views. In 1891, he married the former geisha Sada Yacco

Sada Yacco

Sada Yacco or was a Japanese actress and dancer.Born in Tokyo as Sada Koyama, Sadayakko was trained as a geisha and came to the attention of the prominent Japanese politician Itō Hirobumi, who took an interest in furthering her education. In 1894 she married the actor Otojiro Kawakami, to whom she...

, whose acting career he subsequently fostered.

Playing to stereotypes, Kawakami distilled the exotic elements that were most likely to appeal in The Geisha and the Knight (Geisha to bushi), an enormously popular pastiche

Pastiche

A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...

 now generally regarded as a travesty. During the 1900s he offered huge commissions to Japanese playwrights for adaptations of Shakespeare: Sairoku (1900), Osero (1902) and Hamuretto (1903). He is also known for a satirical song called "Oppekepe." His wife, Sada Yacco, helped him construct the Imperial Theatre in Osaka shortly before his death. Kawakami died in the theatre, where he had been taken following his collapse.
A memorial, commissioned by Sada, was erected to Kawakami at the Yanaka Cemetery

Yanaka Cemetery

is a large cemetery located north of Ueno in Yanaka 7-chome, Taito, Tokyo, Japan. The Yanaka sector of Taito is one of the few Tokyo neighborhoods in which the old Shitamachi atmosphere can still be felt...

in Tokyo, where he is buried. A modern statue in his honour is to be found in his home city of Fukuoka.