Otojirō Kawakami (川上 音二郎 Kawakami Otojirō, 8 February 1864 – 11 November 1911) was a Japanese actor and comedian from present-day Hakata-ku, Fukuoka, 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.[1] 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, 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 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."[2] 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.[3] A memorial, commissioned by Sada, was erected to Kawakami at the Yanaka Cemetery in Tokyo, where he is buried. A modern statue in his honour is to be found in his home city of Fukuoka.