Middle-aged female characters were Yagozaemon’s specialty, and he was considered an encyclopaedia on theatre matters, for no young actor was supposed to know his art unless he had studied under him. By means of his plays he was largely instrumental in adding lustre to the careers of the actors Fujita Koheiji and Araki Yojibei, as well as Kaneko Rokuyemon, for whom the Beggar’s Revenge was especially written. In the same year that Yagozaemon produced his continuous play, Miyako Dennai wrote _Imagawa Shinobi Guruma_ in two acts, that was produced at the Ichimura-za, in Yedo. It concerned a loyal vassal by the name of Imagawa Toshihide who, while making an effort to save the life of his lord, was injured and carried home by his wife, the title meaning, Imagawa in Disguise in a Cart. And it was in this piece that Ichimura Takenojo played. He was the nephew of the first Uzaemon, the proprietor of the Ichimura-za, but shaved his head and became a Buddhist priest. Rapid development in settings, costumes, and plays had already begun when Miyako Dennai wrote this play, for at the end of each act a black curtain was let down, and during the interval when the next scene was being prepared a dance was performed. Stage furniture was used and many improvements carried out in stage settings. An actor who studied under Yagozaemon, called Kaneko Rokuyemon, had two followers, Tominaga Heibei and Kaneko Kichizaemon, and both of the latter became well-known playwrights. Heibei has left no record as an actor, but he was the first to separate the two professions, making them distinct from each other. In 1680, Heibei signed his name as a playwright on the banzuke, or illustrated announcement of the plays. The theatre folk considered it a very presumptuous proceeding, and Heibei was cordially disliked for putting himself forward. Yet by so doing he definitely disconnected the two professions. He lived until the middle of the Genroku age, when playbooks began to have wood-cut illustrations. Some of his works have been preserved, in which there are complicated plots of fair ladies, gentlemen ready in the use of swords, revenge, women disguising themselves as men, and males masquerading as women, the appearances of ghosts, all of which appear to have been popular Kabuki themes in Heibei’s time.