• Bunraku: Komochi Yamamba, Gonza the Lancer (嫗山姥, 鑓の権三)

9/13/20 (Sun), National Theatre

These are the first Bunraku performances since the pandemic hysteria began six months earlier, and they’re still in ultra-cautious mode: taking temperatures, requiring masks, asking us to tear off our own ticket stubs, and, most consequentially for them, cutting the seat count drastically by leaving every other seat open (even for those seeing the show together) and closing off the entire section in front of the narrators, presumably to prevent virus-filled spit from hitting the audience. It was all extremely grating, but I guess we should be grateful that at least there was a show. There were unusually no English earphone guides this month for some reason, so my companions had to rely on the detailed summary provided in the program.

Komochi Yamamba: The only still-performed act of a sprawling five-act history play. Chikamatsu Monzaemon took his inspiration from the Noh play Yamamba, but stripped it of its Buddhist underpinnings and somehow turned the title ogress into the mother of the super-kid Kintaro. This newly invented section (Act 2 of the original) shows how a love-torn courtesan became the mountain crone.

A man seeking to avenge his father’s death is disguised as a tobacco salesman. When he is singing for servants in a rich home, the former courtesan Yaegiri happens by and overhears the song, shocked to recognize it as something she herself wrote for her long-lost lover. She enters the home, at which the tobacco salesman quickly hides. When she sings a song of her betrayal, the man angrily comes out and confronts her, reminding her that they were only temporarily parted while he sought his father’s killer. She reveals sneeringly that his sister has already killed the murderer. The man is so distraught to have failed in his duty that he commits suicide. He tells Yaegiri that his soul will enter her womb to produce a superhuman warrior, then he dies. She passes out, but when she awakens, she has gained incredible strength and fights off a large group of would-be abductors, making a triumphal pose at the end.

Hard to know what to make of the story, but it’s replete with atmosphere. It offers musical highlights for the salesman and courtesan and a rousing fight scene. The text has her flying into the sky at the end, but fortunately they didn’t try that here. Chikamatsu successfully changed the image of the crone from a scraggly old woman to a young courtesan, and apparently borrowed elements for the character from a famous onnagata that he used to write for in Kabuki, interestingly helping preserve the acting style of Kabuki from that day.

Gonza the Lancer: This piece, also by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, was completely sold out throughout the run. It was based on a true case in which a cuckolded tea master killed his wife and her lover, a rival tea master. The author gave the latter master the name Gonza as a riff on a popular song about a spear-wielding warrior, though it doesn’t really fit the complex plot that he has concocted. This production cuts an important scene (available in Donald Keene’s translation) for the sake of pacing, making the motivations less clear. But the story is fascinating all the same.

Gonza has promised himself to a young girl from a samurai family. When his tea master becomes unavailable for an important ceremony, he is asked to conduct it in his place. That angers his rival, fellow student Bannojo, who wanted that honor for himself. When Gonza visits the master’s home, the wife Osai says that the secrets of the ceremony can normally only be passed down to the son and suggests slyly that he marry her daughter if he wants to be selected. He is evasive, but she naturally takes that as a “yes” and tells him to come to the tea room that night for the secret documents.

The problem starts when the maid of Gonza’s fiancée shows up asking the servant if Osai will agree to be the couple’s go-between. Osai is furious to learn about Gonza’s other woman and has her servant throw the visitor out. When Gonza shows up that night, Osai has become jealous, practically as if Gonza has wronged her rather than the daughter. Gonza hears noises in the garden, which is in fact the villain Bannojo spying on them, but Osai accuses him of having women follow him. She rips off his obi, which was woven by his fiancée to feature both families’ crests, and throws it into the garden. She gives him hers to wear instead as a sign of loyalty, but he is shocked and tosses that out as well. Bannojo eagerly grabs both obi and runs off, proclaiming this as a sign of adultery. The two realize that they are in an impossible situation and decide in shame to run away.

The final scene takes place in front of Kyobashi Bridge in Kyoto’s Fushimi district. Revelers perform the o-bon dance on the bridge as Gonza and Osai appear quietly beneath. Osai’s husband and brother show up and challenge the couple. They first kill the wife. Gonza then battles them and appears to have the advantage, but pulls back to allow them to kill him. After cutting off Gonza’s head, the husband interestingly throws down his sword, normally an unthinkable act for a samurai. Is that a comment by Chikamatsu on the societal strictures forcing the husband to kill the man whatever the reason? It’s not in the text, but was the direction something new or traditional? It would seem a rather rebellious act in its day, so I’m assuming it’s a modern interpolation. An unusual ending.

A highly engaging story. The small horses used to show the characters riding in the distance were a curiously modern touch. Chikamatsu’s tragedies tend to stem mainly from a coincidence rather than a tragic flaw, but here it is at least partly due to Gonza’s refusal to acknowledge that he is engaged as well as Osai’s extreme jealousy. It is certainly dramatically effective, though it’s true that the deleted bit would have made more sense of the final scene. It was visually stunning, especially the final scene on the lantern-lit bridge with the o-bon dancers going unwittingly by as the murder is taking place below. Oritayu, taking over for an ill colleague, did a splendid job narrating the main scene. I can see why this piece is so popular.