• Noh: 田村、百万 (Tamura, Hyakuman)

4/16/17 (Sun), Umewaka Noh Theater, Tokyo

This was a nice pairing of shows since both, in a seasonal touch, were set in the cherry blossoms. They were also both explicitly religious and offered fast-paced kakeri (described somewhere as “anguish dances”).

I was particularly interested in Tamura since, unlike the typical laments by felled soldiers, it’s one of only three warrior pieces in Noh that are about winners. (I saw another, Yashima, just a few months earlier.) This play is also unusual among the warrior shows in that it is not about one of the 12th-century Heike battles but an event that comes several hundred years earlier. A monk visiting Kyoto at the height of the cherry blossom season comes across a boy working in Kiyomizu Temple. The boy explains the origins of the temple, supposedly founded by the warrior Tamuramaru, and describes the sights around town. He then dances in celebration of the lovely scene before disappearing into the temple. A man comes out and tells the monk that the boy was the ghost of the warrior himself, prompting the monk to recite a prayer for the boy. At this, Tamuramaru returns as a ghost dressed in warrior finery. He tells in narrative and bold dance of his battle against the enemy on orders of the emperor and his ultimate triumph thanks to the support of Kannon, the goddess (or deity) of mercy.

The first half is more beautiful lyrically than dramatically, especially the quote from an old poem, “A moment in a spring evening is worth a thousand pieces of gold. The fragrance of the flowers, the shadows of the moon!” (春宵一刻価千金。花に清香。月に影。) The dance was lovely if rather long. The second half was more energetic as the warrior illustrated vigorously his encounters on the battlefield in the kakeri section. Many of the kata movements were exactly those used in Yashima, like the spins and use of the fan. There was no inner torment here at all; it was rather a paean to the virtues of Buddha for giving the warrior the power to honor his emperor. A thoroughly enjoyable piece.

In the one-act Hyakuman, a traveling priest has come across a boy who is lost and has brought him to a temple. A worker at the temple tells him about a madwoman who does strange dances. As he humorously imitates her, she shows up and smacks him with a branch. She shows him how the dance is really done. As she goes on, we realize that she has lost her only son and has gone insane looking for him, making her a tragic figure. Her dances are actually prayers to the gods to reunite them. The child suddenly suspects this is his mother and tells the priest. The priest carefully asks her about herself, and she tells him her name, Hyakuman, and her story, again invoking Amida’s name in order to find her child. As she dances her agony, the priest, convinced this is the mother, reveals to her that this is her son. Overjoyed, she expresses her gratitude to Buddha for bringing them together again. A beautiful performance of a lovely show.