• Noh: 三山, 昭君  (Mitsuyama, Shokun)

10/11/20 (Sun), Tokyo

I’ve seen shows at the Kanze and Kita schools in recent weeks, so now it’s Hosho’s turn (partly because I couldn’t get tickets for the sold-out Kanze performance). The shows today were both relative rarities. Each has the unusual feature of two characters entering after the break rather than just the star. The tickets were 70-80% sold, meaning 35-40% of the theater. I’m not sure how they make money on these, but I’m glad they’re pushing ahead.

Mitsuyama: The title refers to three mountains in Yamato (present-day Nara) where the main characters variously live: a man named Kiminari who goes back and forth between two women, Katsurago and Sakurago. (In the original legend, the mountains themselves are the protagonists.) He has gradually drifted more toward the latter, as will happen in threesomes, prompting the distraught Katsurago to throw herself into the river. A traveling priest, hearing the story from a local woman, says a prayer for Katsurago. The woman turns out to be the ghost of Katsurago. She disappears, only to reemerge on the bridge alongside the ghost of her nemesis Sakurago. The jealous Katsurago holds a laurel branch (katsura), while Sakurago carries a cherry branch (sakura). A cat fight ensues as the women beat each other with their branches. Finally they drop their branches and turn to the priest, whose blessing allows them to cast off their earthly obsessions and ascend to paradise.

The show has a notably lively second act. I was surprised to see two parties appearing on stage after the break, with Katsurago wearing a slightly different mask than before. The show doesn’t make clear why Sakurago (the victorious female) needs to be saved since she hasn’t done anything obviously wrong and is just defending herself from her rival’s onslaught. I wish the text had invented something, such as presenting her as haughty in life and here just to gloat. Still, I could forgive anything given the entertaining battle between the two. I don’t know why this piece isn’t done more often.

Shokun: A curious piece based on a Chinese legend about a king who agrees to settle a battle with a barbarian clan by providing a beautiful woman. The king resolves to give his ugliest instead, figuring the other side won’t know either way. He asks all of his 3,000 (!) ladies to prepare portraits, from which he will pick the worst. The women, horrified at the prospect of being handed to a barbarian, all rush to pay off the painter to present them at their best or better. Shokun, the king’s favorite, alone disdains the bribe, confident of her beauty and position. The peeved painter naturally takes out his ire on her portrait, and the king is reluctantly forced to send Shokun to the barbarian enemy, where she grieves and, at the opening of the show, has died.

After a brief appearance by a townsman, Shokun’s anguished parents enter. They carefully tend a withering willow tree planted by Shokun, who told them that if the tree dies, it will mean that she has died as well. They tell their story to the townsman. A mirror appears, and the parents recall an ancient tale in which the image of a loved one appeared in a mirror when a flower was placed before it. They resolve to do the same with the willow. The father then disappears, leaving the mother weeping before the mirror. After an interlude involving a villager, the ghost of Shokun enters. She goes before the mirror to show herself to her parents. However, she is followed by a terrifying demon who identifies himself as the ghost of Kokanya, the barbarian king. (This was a real-life figure, known in Chinese as Huhanye (呼韓邪), ruler of a rebellious nomad tribe during the Han dynasty.) When he looks into the mirror, he realizes his ugliness and departs in shame, leaving the mirror to reflect Shokun’s unblemished beauty.

The first half felt even more protracted than usual, though it was replete with atmosphere and has a strikingly beautiful text. When the father left, I figured he would return as the dead daughter, who is after all the title role. But that role was taken by a child actor. The father instead has transformed into the demon, which doesn’t make much sense as there is no connection at all between the characters. I had guessed that the dead woman would enter regretting her overconfidence, then seeing the light. The theme as it stands is rather muddled as Kokanya was not the focus to that point; it simply contrasts his nastiness with her virtue. The shift to his evil nature seemed rather abrupt, as if there were parts left out. This play is sometimes ascribed to the master Zeami, but scholars suspect that he just reworked an old text, which sounds more reasonable. He should have tried harder.

That said, the second half was spectacular. The demon makes a formidable entry, leaping up and landing smack on his derriere, and kept up the dynamic action throughout. Whatever the play was trying to say didn’t matter at that point given those theatrics. I was surprised that the masks of both the father and demon covered the actor’s entire face instead of the usual half-masks; my friend wonders if the actor was just very small, which sounds iffy. In any case, the demon’s energetic dance makes the whole show worth it.