• Noh:鉢木 (Hachinoki)

10/16/25 (Sun)

A monk wandering in the snow receives shelter in the home of a poor man. The man and his wife do their best to make their guest comfortable despite their straitened circumstances, providing a roof and humble millet and, most movingly, burning their prized potted trees for warmth, reminding me vaguely of La Bohème. (The title Hachinoki, or “The Potted Plants,” evidently implies a deeper container than the shallow dishes used in bonsai, but the concept sounds much the same.) The monk suspects from the man’s bearing and references to ancient poetry that something is amiss, and the man eventually confesses that he was formerly a samurai whose lands were unfairly usurped. He says that despite his troubles, he remains loyal to the shogun and would ride to his call even now if needed with his rusty armor, broken spear and weak horse. The monk, touched, encourages the couple as he takes his leave.

Some months later, a rumor is spread that war is imminent, and the poor man rushes on his gaunt steed to Kamakura, the capital city, to serve the shogun. There, he is spotted and personally summoned to the court. Baffled as to why such a lowly person as he should be brought before the nobility, he presumes he has been framed as a traitor by his enemies and prepares to die.

As he enters, taunted by the well-dressed soldiers for his ragged appearance, he discovers, in a rather Kabuki-like touch, that the person who called for him was none other than the monk, who is in actuality the powerful regent Hojo Tokiyori, an historic figure said to have traveled incognito to mingle with the people. Tokiyori wanted to test the man’s claims of loyalty to the shogunate, which the man easily passed. He restores the property to the poor man and grants him extra lands whose names correspond with the three small trees – plum (Umeda), cherry (Sakurai), pine (Matsuida) – that the man used for firewood.

A lovely story of redemption. The old man, being a living male, does not wear a mask as does the wife and has to maintain a mask-like face throughout. (Maskless plays constitute their own category known as hitamen.) There is much talk of karma, highlighted by the happy ending for the couple’s kindness. Tokiyori was in power a century earlier than the presumed date of the play, which is said to come from a 1383 tale. That would be during the life of Zeami, though his authorship is uncertain; it seems a much later piece given all the action in the second half.

It is a very talky play, but the talk is of a very high order. Chinese poetry is liberally quoted, such as the evocative description of the snow as a white coat of goose down (suggesting also the man’s white hair) and the dream of the millet that also features so prominently in the great drama Kantan. The numerous place references provide lots of opportunity for wordplay, and there are plentiful quotes from old Japanese poems or tales, pointing subtly to the poor man’s noble upbringing. Loved the idea of the man racing to join the army in his tattered armor and bone-thin horse like a Japanese Don Quijote (albeit several centuries earlier). The dreariness of the opening scene contrasts splendidly with the ending grandeur.

The cutting of the branches from the small tree, the sole prop, was heartrending as the man recalls his love for the potted plants in the past. The parting of the monk and poor man was especially touching as the latter assumes he will never see the monk again. It is a beautiful meditation on acceptance and things past, culminating in a payback for good deeds. Relatively large cast of seven plus two ai actors.