Matsukaze, The Wind in the Pines, by Zeami (14th-15th c.)

Matsukaze by Zeami is often considered as the greatest Noh play and also as one of the greatest Japanese plays ever written. The title of Matsukaze is taken from the name of its protagonist, the ghost of a female salt maker - a rural girl lingering on the desolate seashore of Suma waiting for the return of her lover, who long ago set off for the capital and never returned. Her name is therefore a pun: both "wind in the pines" and "the wind that awaits."

[Scene from Matsukaze by Tsukioka Kogyo (c. 1900)]

The play is based on several stories. In the first place we have the historical Ariwara no Yukihira (818-893), the grandson of emperor Heizei, a courtier and high official who fulfilled various positions, from the governor of several provinces to Councillor and Minister. He was also a poet, just like his even more famous brother Narihira (Narihira is known for his many love affairs and became the stuff of legend - he is the "hero" of the poem-tale The Tales of Ise).

We know almost no details about the life of the historical Yukihira, but apparently at one time he was banished for three years to the lonely shore of Suma (now lying within the city limits of Kobe and not at all lonely anymore). The rest is fiction, based on the motif of "the courtier who goes down to the provinces, becomes briefly involved with a woman there, and then leaves her yearning for him forever more." The story that while Yukihira lived at Suma he amused himself by helping two fisher-girls, Matsukaze (Pinning Wind) and Murasame (Autumn Rain), to carry salt water in pails from the sea to the salt-kilns on the shore, was probably devised by Zeami. Salt-making was an intricate process, as described by Royall Tyler in his translation of the play: seaweed was either harvested offshore or workers raked it up from the beach, and then repeatedly poured brine over it. Next they would burn this salt-saturated seaweed, mix the ashes with water, let them settle, and then skim off the salt solution. Only after that would they boil down this elaborately prepared brine (paraphrased from Tyler, p. 192).

At this time Yukihira wrote two famous poems; the first, while he was crossing the mountains on his way to Suma:

through the traveler's dress
the autumn wind blows
with sudden chill
it is the shore-wind of Suma
blowing through the pass
 
When he had lived a little while at Suma, he sent to the capital a poem which said:

if any should ask news
tell him that upon the shore of Suma
I drag the water-pails

These poems and their imagery play an important role in the Noh play.

Zeami was also inspired by the Suma chapter of The Tale of Genji. Like Yukihira, Genji spends a period of exile in Suma, and then moves on to neighboring Akashi, where he becomes involved with the Akashi Lady, who likened her own status to that of the rural girls working by the seashore. Matsukaze borrows from the Genji Monogatari the relationship between a noble exile and a local woman at the seacoast and recreates it as the story of Yukihira who while in exile at Suma for three years, had an affair with two local girls and left behind his robe and court cap as keepsakes when he journeyed back to the capital.

The chapter of the Genji Monogatari called “Suma” says:

Although the sea was some way off, yet when the melancholy autumn wind came “blowing through the pass” (the very wind of Yukihira’s poem), the beating of the waves on the shore seemed near indeed.

It is round this prose passage and the two poems quoted above that the play is written.

[Yukihira and the two salt-making sisters]

The plot is as follows:
One autumn evening, a traveling priest has come to the seashore at Suma where he notices a strange pine tree standing alone which seems to serve as a memorial (in the play, a small pine tree set in a stand, is placed at front of stage; a poem-slip hangs in its branches). When the priest asks a local about it, the villager explains that it is a grave marker for two young diver sisters, Matsukaze and Murasame, and asks him to pray for them. The monk recites a sutra and prays for the comfort of their souls. Meanwhile, it is growing  late and the priest announces that he intends to ask for shelter “in that salt-kiln.” He goes to the “waki’s pillar” and waits there as if waiting for the master of the kiln to return.

Meanwhile Matsukaze and Murasame come on to the stage (they are pulling a brine wagon, a small, light evocation of a wagon with a pail on it and a long brocade rope to pull it). They then perform the “water-carrying” dance which culminates in the famous passage known as “the moon in the water-pails.” The sisters, ladling seawater into their brine cart at night, become fascinated by the sight of the moon in the water, and try to capture it in their pails.

Here is this passage in the translation by Arthur Waley (The No Plays of Japan):

CHORUS (speaking for MURASAME).

There is a moon in my pail!

MATSUKAZE.

Why, into my pail too a moon has crept!

(Looking up at the sky.)

One moon above ...

CHORUS.
Two imaged moons below,
So through the night each carries
A moon on her water-truck,
Drowned at the bucket’s brim.
Forgotten, in toil on this salt sea-road,
The sadness of this world where souls cling!

Their work is over and they approach their hut, i. e., the “waki’s pillar,” where the priest is waiting. After refusing for a long while to admit him “because their hovel is too mean to receive him,” they give him shelter, and after the usual questioning, reveal their identities. They now are overcome with their love and longing for Yukihira - and the monk realizes that they are ghostly beings, the two sisters buried in the grave under the pine tree. 

Matsukaze next mistakes the pine tree for her lover Yukihira. In the final dance she dresses in the “court-hat and hunting cloak given her by Lord Yukihira” and dances, among other dances, the “Broken Dance,” which also figures in the Noh play Hagoromo.

The “motif” of this part of the play is a famous poem by Yukihira in the Hyakunin Isshu which was also interpreted to fit in this story (my translation below therefore differs from the one in my post on Yukihira in the One Hundred Poems, One Poem Each series):

when I am gone away
and hear that like the pines
growing on the peak of Mount Inaba
you are pining for me
I will immediately come back to you

There is a familiar play of words between matsu, “wait,” and matsu, “pine-tree”; Inaba, the name of a mountain, and inaba, “if I go away.”

The play ends with the release of the girls’ souls from the shushin, “heart-attachment,” which holds them to the earth. Their attachment has been broken and now they can obtain enlightenment.


Finally, a few remarks on the Noh and Zeami, the creator of the genre and author of Matsukaze.

By the mid-14th c. Noh had gained wide popularity, especially among the warrior class. The Kanze troupe from Nara, led first by Kan'ami (1333-1384) and later by his son Zeami (1363-1443), shaped the genre into what is seen on today's stage. Kan'ami began making trips to Kyoto to give performances, and in 1374 the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was in the audience and was so impressed that he became Kan'ami's patron. Kan'ami wrote many plays, but as these were in later times adapted into new plays by his son Zeami and others, only few have been transmitted in their original form.

Zeami wrote nearly 40 plays (more than 50 when we include his revisions of existing plays), which are marked by exquisite diction and frequent allusion to classical texts. He created plays with elegant dances and refined versification. Zeami also wrote about 20 theoretical treatises on the Noh theater.

Another innovation by Zeami was the "mugen-Noh," the "dream play," in which a monk meets a ghost, plant spirit or deity, who in the guise of a commoner recalls a famous episode that took place at that location; then, in the second act, the ghost appears in its original form in the monk's dream, recalling a crucial incident in his or her former life that has blocked the path to buddhahood. By reenacting the incident, the ghost finally seeks to gain enlightenment through the monk's prayers. This is also the type of play to which Matsukaze belongs.

I have read the translation by Royall Tyler Japanese No Dramas in Penguin Classics (also anthologized in Traditional Japanese Literature by Haruo Shirane). Another translation is by Donald Keene in 20 Plays of the No Theatre (Columbia U.P., 1970)

In the above I have quoted from The No Plays of Japan by Arthur Waley (New York, 1922, public domain), pp. 226-228. Waley doesn't translate the play, but gives a brief summary.

Performance by Tessenkai at Youtube (with English explanations)

Greatest Plays of All Time



       

Delicious Poison (Busu), Kyogen

Kyogen ("mad words") are short, humorous plays programmed as an intermission between the different Noh plays that are usually part of a performance. Although it developed alongside Noh and retains strong ties with it, Kyogen is a comic form, very different from the solemn, symbolic Noh - its primary goal is to make the audience laugh.

Kyogen plays are invariably brief – often about 10 minutes, and they contain only two or three roles, which are usually stock characters, for example Taro kaja, the main servant, Jiro kaja, the second servant, and the Master, shujin. Movements and dialogue in kyogen are very exaggerated. All kyogen actors, including those in female roles, are men. Kyogen is generally performed on a Noh stage. The traditions of kyogen are maintained primarily by family groups, especially the Izumi school and Okura school.

[Kyogen performance (not of Busu)]

Delicious Poison (Busu) is one of the most popular kyogen plays. It is a humorous description of how the servants Tarokaja and Jirokaja catch their master in a lie and silence him using his own logic.

The Busu of the title is a generic name for "poison" in Chinese herbal medicine - the specific name used in the play is "torikabuto," wolf's bane. The master has to go away on business and he is worried that his servants, Taro and Jiro, will eat his precious store of sugar while he is away - prior to the Edo period, when finally industrial sugar production was undertaken, all sugar In Japan was imported and therefore rare and valuable (as sweetener an from sweet beans, azuki, was used as still in traditional Japanese sweets). So he lies to the servants that the large, lidded lacquer barrel containing the sugar, actually contains a very strong poison, torikabuto. He tells them to carefully guard it but on no account go near it, as one whiff of the stuff is already deadly.

After the master has left, both servants at first are afraid of the deadly pot, but they are also fascinated by it. They are frightened when a small breeze blows over the pot in their direction. But how is the master able to handle this stuff when it is so poisonous? Their curiosity gets stronger and stronger and they decide to remove the lid and peak inside - to be on the safe side, one of them has to make a breeze with his fan in the opposite direction. Now that the lid is off, what is inside the barrel actually looks quite delicious. The next step is to dip a pair of chopsticks in it and taste a small bit (they use their stage fans to mimic this). They soon realize that their master has fooled them: the barrel contains delicious sugar (presumably in the form of syrup) and they end up eating the whole lot, competing with each other. "It's so delicious, I'm dying!"

Now they have to find an excuse for when the master returns. They tear up a valuable hanging scroll hanging on the wall, and also break a precious Chinese vase. When the master returns, they sit next to the broken scroll and vase and start crying. The master asks what happened. They explain: "When we did some sumo wresting to keep awake to guard the important barrel, we broke the hanging scroll and pot by mistake, so to atone for our misdeed, we were going to commit suicide by eating the poison you told us was kept in the pot. But so far nothing has happened - unfortunately we couldn't die..." Despite these words, both servants look very satisfied after having consumed this delicious snack.

Unlike most Kyogen, Busu has an identifiable literary source, the collection of Buddhist stories called Shasekishu (Collection of Sand and Pebbles) compiled in the 13th century by the priest Muju Ichien. The characters are a monk and an acolyte; the second servant has been added in the play. There is also a similar story about the Priest Ikkyu from a later period. As a folk story, it is categorized among similar tales under the name of "candy is poison." In those stories, many variations of foods are used as "poison," and various treasured goods are destroyed by way of an apology.

I have read Delicious Poison in the translation of Laurence Kominz, published in Traditional Japanese Literature, An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, edited by Haruo Shirane.

Performance with subtitles on Youtube (starts at 8:21)


Greatest Plays of All Time

 

Kanadehon Chushingura (1748)

Kanadehon Chushingura or "the story of the 47 loyal retainers" is perhaps the most famous story in Japan, popular among aficionados of "Bushido" and violent tragedy also in the West. It is based on two linked historical incidents (together called "the Ako incident"): in 1701, Asano Naganori, the daimyo of the Ako domain, assaulted his superior Kira Yoshinaka in Edo Castle, presumably after having been provoked; for this transgression (violence was forbidden in the palace of the shogun), Asano was sentenced to commit seppuku, but Kira did not receive any punishment. The shogunate confiscated Asano's lands and dismissed the samurai who had served him, making them ronin. Then almost two years later, after skilled secret planning, the leader of these ronin, Oishi Kuranosuke, led a group of forty-six/forty-seven of the ronin (some discount the membership of one for various reasons) in an attack on Kira's mansion in Edo; they captured and executed Kira, and laid his head at the grave of Asano at Sengakuji. They then turned themselves in to the authorities, and were all sentenced to commit seppuku. Read more about the historical incident in my blog article about Chushingura.

[The seppuku scene from Act Four, by Kunisada]

 
The uniqueness of the case and the mysterious motivations of its protagonists, soon made this story of the "Tormented Lord" and his "Loyal Retainers" extremely popular as fictional material, although the action had to be transposed back several centuries and the identities of its actors had to be hidden, as commentaries and plays about contemporary events and persons were forbidden by the shogunate. Between 1706 and 1892 about seventy Kabuki and Bunraku puppet plays were written about this hot subject. And the subject remained popular, also in modern times: in total about 70 Chushingura films were made in the 20th c. (mainly between 1907 and 1962), plus about 30 TV versions. They were generally box office hits, and served to propagate on a massive scale the ideal of loyalty and self-sacrifice (although most viewers may just have considered it as a good story). These modern films were based on the historical incident, rather, than the puppet play or Kabuki versions.

The most famous of these early plays became Kanadehon Chushingura, "Kana practice book Treasury of the Loyal Retainers," an 11-act bunraku puppet play from 1748. ""Kanadehon" or "Kana practice book" in the full title refers to the coincidence that the number of ronin matches the number of kana syllables.

Now, when you read this puppet play, you will be surprised. We are used to calling the protagonists "Asano", "Oishi" and "Kira," but in Kanadehon Chushingura the names of the protagonists have been changed and the story is transported several centuries back. Asano Naganori becomes Enya Hangan, Kira Yoshinaka becomes Ko no Moronao and Oishi Kuranosuke is Oboshi Yuranosuke. The setting is the mid-14th century, the time of the Ashikaga shoguns. The initial incident in the palace is transferred from Edo to Kamakura, as is the last scene of the attack on Moronao's mansion in Kamakura. The ronin have been hiding in Yamashina, a suburb of Kyoto, and travel by boat with their weapons from Sakai, a port near Osaka, to Inamuragasaki, a cape at the western end of Yuigahama Beach in Kamakura.

[Act V: Kanpei, the hunter, and the thief who has stolen a purse]

Here are the eleven acts of Kanadehon Chushingura:
Act I: Set in Kamakura's Hachiman Shrine, where Ko no Moronao unsuccessfully tries to seduce the wife of Enya Hangan (adding a personal element to the motivation).
Act II: Set in the Kamakura mansion of Wakanosuke, a colleague of Enya Hangan, who just as much has a grievance against Moronao, but is prevented from acting on it by his clever retainer Honzo.
Act III. The taunted Enya Hangan attacks Ko no Moronao in the Pine Corridor of the shogunal palace in Kamakura.
Act IV: Enya Hangan's seppuku; with his dying breath Enya Hangan asks Oboshi Yuranosuke to avenge his death; Yuranosuke takes possession of the dagger used by Asano during his seppuku and this becomes his keepsake, almost a fetish; in the end he will plunge the weapon into the body of his lord's enemy.
Act V: A side story mostly dropped in later versions of Chushingura, concerning the 47th ronin and why he was not able to join the attack in the last act. On the Yamazaki Highway, between Kyoto and Osaka, Kanpei, a former retainer of Enya Hangan who wants to join the vendetta, by mistake shoots a robber and finds a purse with cash.
Act VI: Continuation of Kanpei's story. Kanpei mistakenly thinks that he has killed his father-in-law in the previous scene and commits suicide; in reality, he has kiled a robber and retrieved the purse stolen by that robber.
Act VII: Set in the Ichiriki Teahouse in Kyoto's Gion area. Yuranosuke pretends to be debauched by making fun in Kyoto's licensed quarter.
Act VIII: Another side story: Konami, the betrothed of Yuranosuke's son Rikiya, travels to Yamashina (a village just east of Kyoto, now part of the city), where Yuranosuke is hiding.
Act IX: Continuation of Act Eight: Yuranosuke's wife is against the marriage of her son with Konami, but relents when Konami's father Honzo commits suicide to atone for his act of restraining Enya Hangan in the past.
Act X: Set in the House of Amakawaya Gihei, a merchant in the port city of Sakai. The ronin test the trustworthiness of Gihei, who will transport them and their weapons to Kamakura by boat.
Act XI: The attack on Moronao's mansion, led by Yuranosuke. The attackers come on shore in Kamakura at cape Inamuragasaki, and then march to the mansion of Moronao, whose head is then carried to Hangan's grave at Komyoji Temple.

[Act X: in front of the mansion of merchant Amakawaya Gihei in Sakai]

Certain elements of this Bunraku / Kabuki play became standard to the story; others proved more extraneous. Central were acts III, IV, VII, and XI. I have marked two sequences (acts 5 and 6, and acts 8 and 9) as "side stories", but that is only from the perspective of the historical incident and later adaptations. In the puppet play these acts have been tightly integrated into the overall story. There are some inconsistencies in the puppet play, especially in characterization (perhaps because there were three different authors, Takeda Izumo, Miyoshi Shoraku and Namiki Senryu, who were each responsible for different acts), but overall it has a great variety of scenes and a magnificent cumulative effect. It is also a great play to read. A complete performance takes about ten to eleven hours. While the puppet play is sometimes staged in its entirety, in the many Kabuki versions which would appear within a few years after 1748, it became customary to perform just a few selected acts and not the whole work. 

Kanadehon Chushingura is one of the core works of the Japanese theater tradition, together with the Noh play Matsukaze. These two plays could not be more different, but both are quintessentially Japanese, illustrating two different aspects of Japanese culture: in the Noh play, austere restraint and understatement, in the Bunraku play a craving for excitement, color and even violence (as Donald Keene writes in the introduction to his translation of the play). 

English translation: Chushingura, The Treasury of Loyal Retainers, a puppet play, translated by Donald Keene (Tuttle, 1981, many times reprinted also in other editions).

See my blog article "The Ako Incident and the Forty-Seven Loyal Retainers (Chushingura) in fact and fiction" for a discussion of the various film version of the story.

Greatest Plays of All Time

The Brothers Menaechmus, by Plautus (200 BCE)

Plautus is great fun - like Shakespeare or Molière, his comedies are really enjoyable, though simpler, for there are no serious themes in these farces.

Plautus is very different from Aristophanes, the first Greek comedy writer. Aristophanes' plays are full of political satire and social criticism, and his frequent references to current events and persons make his work difficult to read - almost every other sentence you have to look up something in the notes (reason why I have selected Lysistrata, which is relatively easy to understand without commentary). But after Aristophanes' time, we get a simpler type of comedy in Greece. This new style was later called "new comedy" in opposition to the "old comedy" style of Aristophanes, and new-style plays were written by Menander (342-290 BCE) and others who wrote between 320 and 260 BCE.

Plautus learned his trade from the "new comedy," farces that could be performed without risk of giving offense. Instead, there is much more of a focus on the home and the family unit - something that the Romans could easily understand and adopt. There are also no heroic or supernatural overtones. The "new comedy" uses stock plots (thwarted lovers) and stock characters (the cunning slave, the wily merchant, the boastful soldier, the cruel father). One of the lovers is usually a foundling, the discovery of whose true birth and identity makes marriage possible in the end.

Plautus often used the plots from Greek plays, as well as Greek settings. After all, the Romans who learned the theater from Sicily (which had been colonized by the Greeks), thought about plays as something essentially Greek. 

[Plautus]

Plautus (254-184 BCE) wrote about 120 plays, of which 20 have survived more or less intact. His plays are the earliest literary works in Latin to have come down to us in their entirety (i.e. not in fragments). He may have worked as a theater carpenter or scene shifter before becoming a professional playwright - he knew the theater inside out. His plays were created between 205 and 184 BCE.

As indicated above, Plautus' comedies are mostly adapted from Greek models for a Roman audience. He not only reworked the Greek texts to give them a flavor that would appeal to local Roman audiences, but above all poured the plot and characters in virtuoso language with a strong expression, often using alliteration, punning and other literary devices.

One of Plautus' most famous characters is "the clever slave," who often drives the plot in his plays. Plautus took the stock slave character from the "new comedy" and altered it for his own purposes, by finding humor in slaves tricking their masters or comparing themselves to great heroes. Other typical figures in Plautus are: the young man in love who spends his father's money as if it were water; the strict father; the domineering wife; the parasite, a stereotypical figure who renders all kinds of services to his master, in exchange for a meal; the comic courtesan; the quack doctor.

Note also that Plautus' plays were a form of musical comedy: they consisted of songs (arias), recitative and spoken dialogue. Costumes were standardized, masks were worn in the Greek fashion, and all players were male.

The plot of The Brothers Menaechmus is as follows: two identical twins from Syracuse are separated when still very young; the eldest twin is believed dead so the youngest one takes his name, Menaechmus, in his memory. Menaechmus I, however, is very much alive and resides in Epidamnus where he has married a wealthy wife. Menaechmus II has been looking all his life for his brother and now happens to visit Epidamnus, where he is of course immediately confused with his twin brother. Many curious and laughable mistakes happen between him and persons who are involved with Menaechmus I, such as his domineering wife, his courtesan Erotium, his parasite Peniculus, his father-in-law, etc. Lastly it is the clever slave Messenio of Menaechmus II who clears things up. The brothers recognize each other and Messenio receives his liberty as a reward. Menaechmus I decides to sell his possessions and returns with his twin brother Menaechmus II to his native place Syracuse.


Plautus's influence on later literature is enormous, especially on two literary giants, Shakespeare and Molière, both in a direct and indirect sense. The Brothers Menaechmus by Plautus was for example the major source for William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors - Shakespeare even doubles the identical twins by making the servants also into twin brothers. The play spawned more offspring: Shakespeare's work was in turn adapted as a Broadway musical by Rodgers and Hart in 1938 as The Boys from Syracuse. And in 2001 the Mansaku company of Japan performed The Kyogen of Errors, showing that Shakespearean slapstick was particularly suited to the earthy, comic style of Kyogen.

A similar line of influence of Plautus' play was Carlo Goldoni's 1747 play I due gemelli veneziani ("The two Venetian twins"), which was amongst others adapted and staged as a 1979 Australian two-act musical comedy.

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night also features mistaken twins, the sister dressed as a boy. As the actual father of twins, Shakespeare  seems to have been especially interested in twinship.

And, finally, the 1962 musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was based on three other plays by Plautus (specifically Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus, and Mostellaria); it tells the bawdy story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door. 

I have read the translation by E.F. Watling in Penguin Classics (The Pot of Gold and Other Plays).

Full text in English (older translation) at Perseus

Greatest Plays of All Time

 

Lysistrata, by Aristophanes (411 BCE)

Lysistrata is one of the most well-known of the Greek comedies by Aristophanes, written in the spring of 411 BC - in the twentieth year of the Peloponnesian War. In the same year in Athens aristocrats overthrew the radical democratic government in a coup. Lysistrata is the third of Aristophanes' pacifist anti-warpieces, the story of a female sex-strike to force the men to stop running off to yet another war or battleground.

[Lysistrata, by Aubrey Beardsley (1896)]

The piece addresses the fact that men are the cause of war and the suffering that goes with it, and the struggle of women against that. Lysistrata is an extraordinary woman with a large sense of individual and social responsibility. She has convened a meeting of women from various Greek city-states that are at war with each other. With support from the Spartan Lampito, Lysistrata persuades the other women to sexually deny their husbands as a means of forcing them to conclude the Peloponnesian War. The women are very reluctant, for obvious reasons, but the deal is sealed with a solemn oath. Soon after that, a cry of triumph is heard from the nearby Acropolis - the old women of Athens have seized control of it at Lysistrata's instigation, since it holds the state treasury, without which the men cannot continue to fund their wars. Lampito goes off to spread the word of revolt, and the other women retreat behind the barred gates of the Acropolis to await the men's response.

A chorus of old men arrives, carrying heavy timbers, intent on burning down the gate of the Acropolis if the women do not open up. From the other side, a chorus of old women arrives, bearing pitchers of water. Threats are exchanged, water beats fire, and the old men get a soaking. The magistrate then arrives with Scythian Archers (the Athenian version of police constables), blaming the men for poor supervision of their womenfolk. He has come for silver from the state treasury to buy oars for the fleet, but his Scythians are quickly overwhelmed by groups of determined women.

Lysistrata explains the frustrations that women feel at a time of war when the men make stupid decisions that affect everyone, without listening to the opinions of their wives. She drapes her headdress over the magistrate, gives him a basket of wool and tells him that war will be a woman's business from now on. Outraged at these indignities, he storms off.

Now Lysistrata has to restore discipline among the women, for her comrades are themselves so desperate for sex that they are beginning to desert on the silliest pretexts. But the condition of the husbands is even worse. The women play with them - enticing them and then again pushing them away.

A Spartan herald (in a very bad state) then appears requesting peace talks, and these indeed commence. Lysistrata introduces the Spartan and Athenian delegates to a gorgeous young woman called Reconciliation. The delegates cannot take their eyes off the young woman; meanwhile, Lysistrata scolds both sides for past errors of judgment. The delegates briefly squabble over the peace terms, but with Reconciliation before them and the burden of sexual deprivation still heavy upon them, they quickly overcome their differences and retire to the Acropolis for celebrations. The war is ended!

Over the centuries, Lysistrata has been frequently adapted: as a play (The Woman's Prize by John Fletcher, 1611); as a musical (The Greatest Sex, 1956; The Happiest Girl in the World, 1961); as an opera (by Mark Adamo, 2005); as an operetta (Paul Lincke, 1902); as ballet (1941), and it has inspired (sub-)plots of various films. 

Lysistrata is notable for being an early exposé of gender relations in a male-dominated society. It was produced in the same year as Women at the Thesmophoria, another play with a focus on the subversive role of women in a male-dominated society, just two years after Athens' catastrophic defeat in the Sicilian Expedition. And in Assembly Women of 391 BCE Aristophanes invented a scenario where the women of Athens assume control of the government and instate reforms that ban private wealth and enforce sexual equity for the old and unattractive. Modern adaptations of Lysistrata are often feminist and/or pacifist in their aim (although dramatic poets in classical Athens were neither unreservedly pacifist not feminist in the modern sense).

Finally a few words about Aristophanes (c. 446 – c. 386 BCE), who has been dubbed "The Father of Comedy." Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete. Like the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, his plays were written for production at the great dramatic festivals of Athens, the Lenaia and City Dionysia, where they were judged and awarded prizes in competition with the works of other comic dramatists. His plays were highly political, addressing topical concerns by mentioning real individuals and local issues - "topicality" and "political theater" are the keywords here. The plays have a significance that goes beyond their artistic function, as historical documents that open the window on life and politics in classical Athens, in which respect they are perhaps as important as the writings of Thucydides. The artistic influence of the plays is immeasurable. They have greatly contributed to the history of European theater. 

 

I have read Lysistrata in the translation by Stepehn Halliwell in Oxford World's Classics (Birds and Other Plays).

Online translation.

Illustration from Wikipedia, from which I have also borrowed some parts of the synopsis.

Greatest Plays of All Time

Helen, by Euripides (412 BCE)

Euripides' Helen starts with quite a lot of names and mythological background, forcing the reader to frequently consult the notes. But I decided to include this play as Michael Billington in The 101 Greatest Plays calls it "the greatest play by Euripides." Helen was written soon after the Sicilian Expedition, in which Athens had suffered a massive defeat. In the play, Euripides strongly condemns war, deeming it to be the root of all evil.

[Helen of Troy by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1863)]

Helen, the daughter of the supreme god Zeus and Leda in Greek mythology, was the most beautiful woman in the world. Zeus is said to have seduced Leda in the form of a swan and from the eggs Leda laid Helen and Pollux were born. When it came time for Helen to be married, many kings and princes came to ask for her hand. The favorite was Menelaus, who did not come in person but was represented by his brother Agamemnon, and Helen married him.

The myth goes that a few years later, Paris, a Trojan prince, came to Sparta to take the most beautiful girl in the world. This was Helen. Aphrodite had promised him her as a reward, if in return he would choose the goddess as the most beautiful in the "Judgement of Paris," incurring the wrath of Athena and Hera. When Paris visited Helen and Menelaus, they received him very warmly, and with Aphrodite's help, Helen fell in love with Paris and secretly left her husband to be with her new lover.

When Menelaus discovered that his wife was gone, he asked his brother Agamemnon for advice. Agamemnon, who had wanted to fight Troy for years, told his brother to declare war. Menelaus summoned all the kings and heroes of Greece to start the Trojan War. "A thousand ships" were launched by the Greeks to get Helen back from Troy.

After ten years of war, when he had finally entered Troy by ruse with the wooden horse, Menelaus wanted to kill Helen. But when Helen saw Menelaus, the spell broke and she fell in love with him again. Menelaus, unable to bring herself to kill her, took her back to Sparta and grew old with her.

So far the "official" myth. There was also a variant version which maintained that Helen had never in fact arrived at Troy, but had been in Egypt during the entire Trojan War - rather than running off to Troy with Paris, Helen was actually whisked away to Egypt by the gods. The Helen who escaped with Paris, betraying her husband and her country and initiating the ten-year conflict, was actually an "eidolon," a phantom look-alike. After Paris was promised the most beautiful woman in the world by Aphrodite and he judged her fairer than her fellow goddesses Athena and Hera, Hera ordered Hermes to replace Helen, Paris' assumed prize, with a fake. Thus, the real Helen has been languishing in Egypt for years, while the Greeks and Trojans alike scold her for her supposed infidelity.

At the beginning of the play, the Egyptian king Proteus, who has protected Helen, has died. His son Theoclymenus, the new king, intends to marry Helen, who after all these years remains loyal to her husband Menelaus. However, she receives word from the exiled Greek Teucer that Menelaus never returned to Greece from Troy, and is presumed dead, putting her in a perilous position. She consults the prophetess Theonoe, sister to Theoclymenus, to find out more about Menelaus' fate.

Her fears are allayed when a stranger arrives in Egypt and turns out to be Menelaus himself, who, beaten by storms out of his way, is shipwrecked on the coast of Egypt. At first, Menelaus does not believe that she is the real Helen, since he has hidden the Helen he won in Troy in a cave. But luckily one of his sailors steps in to inform him that the false Helen has disappeared into thin air.

The couple still must figure out how to escape from Egypt, but the rumor that Menelaus has died is still in circulation. Thus, Helen tells Theoclymenus that the stranger who came ashore was a messenger who came to tell her that her husband was truly dead. She informs the king that she may marry him as soon as she has performed a ritual burial at sea, thus freeing her symbolically from her first wedding vows. The king agrees to this, and Helen and Menelaus use this opportunity to escape on the boat given them for the ceremony.

[Helen, by Evelyn De Morgan (1898)]

Why is Helen such a great play? According to Michael Billington because it invents the new form of tragicomedy, and because Sophocles offers a strong indictment of war's futility. As Helen of Troy does not exist and is just a mirage, the whole Trojan War has been fought about nothing - as so many wars are, also in recent times. Instead of cheating on her husband with Paris and then eloping with him to Troy, the real Helen has spent 17 years living in Egypt as a model of marital fidelity. She is chastely waiting for her husband to return from the useless war.

When they finally meet, Helen has a quicker mind than her husband Menelaus, who has (understandably) some difficulty accepting the idea that he sailed to Troy in pursuit of a shadow. It is also Helen who comes up with the great plan for their escape from Egypt, by feigning that she has to carry out funeral obsequies for her deceased husband at sea. In other words, in Billington's words, "the whole play is a testament to female resourcefulness." It may be partly due to my selection and preferences, but also in Antigone, Electra and Medea we have met strong women. 

I have read Helen in the translation by James Morwood in Oxford World's Classics.

The 101 Greatest Plays from Antiquity to the Present, by Michael Billington (Faber & Faber, 2015)

Illustrations from Wikipedia, from which I have also borrowed some parts of the synopsis.

Greatest Plays of All Time

Medea, by Euripides (431 BCE)

This play, about the terrible revenge a spurned wife takes on her husband by killing his new wife as well as the two children she has by him, in the 20th c. became the most popular Greek tragedy. Euripides' play was interpreted in a variety of ways, from political to psychoanalytical and above all through feminist readings, which consider the play as an exploration of the disadvantages of being a woman in a patriarchal society.

The play is centered on Medea's calculated desire for revenge against her unfaithful husband Jason. After the adventures of stealing the miraculous Golden Fleece from the property of the king of Colchis (Medea's father), the Greek hero Jason has fled with his wife Medea to Corinth, where king Creon has granted them asylum. However, in Corinth Jason's love for Medea soon cools and he seeks to advance his political ambitions by marrying princess Glauce, the daughter of King Creon.

[Alfons Mucha - Medea]

When reading the play, it is important to realize the following aspects about Medea. She is not from Greece, but from the Caucasus - in other words, she is a "barbarian" to the Greeks, who were very xenophobic in that period, and her life in Corinth as "immigrant" is not easy. She is also a "sorceress" - she has a deep knowledge of herbs and poisons. And finally, she can be very violent, as when she helped Jason obtain the Golden Fleece by killing her brother.

The play begins with Medea in a blind rage towards Jason for arranging to marry Glauce. Her elderly nurse and the chorus of Corinthian women (generally sympathetic to her plight) fear what she might do to herself or her children. King Creon, also fearing violence, announces that he will send her into exile with her two boys. Medea pleads for one day's delay and eventually Creon acquiesces - unwittingly giving her enough time for her revenge.

In the next scene Jason arrives to explain the rationale behind his apparent betrayal. He explains that he couldn't pass up the opportunity to marry a royal princess - after all, Medea is from Colchis in the Caucasus and is only a "barbarian" woman to the Greeks. He hopes to someday join the two families and keep Medea as his mistress. It will be beneficial for all of them. Although Jason reasons rationally and pragmatically, Medea, and the chorus of Corinthian women, do not believe him. She reminds him that she left her own people for him - and that she has even murdered her own brother for his sake. This means she can never return to her homeland, Colchis. She has also saved Jason's life by slaying the dragon which guarded the Golden Fleece. Jason promises to support her after his new marriage, but Medea spurns his words as a mere pretext, and hints darkly that he may live to regret his decision.

In the following scene Medea encounters Aegeus, king of Athens. He reveals to her that despite his marriage he is still without children, and asks the renowned sorceress to help his wife conceive a child. Medea agrees to give him herbs which can end infertility and in return asks for his protection. Aegeus is not aware of Medea‘s plans for revenge, but he promises to give her refuge whenever she comes to Athens. 

[Jason and Medea by John William Waterhouse (1907)]

Medea then starts plotting the murders of Glauce and Creon. She decides to drench in poison a golden robe (a family heirloom and gift from the sun god Helios) and a coronet, in the hope that the bride will not be able to resist wearing them, and consequently be poisoned. Medea also resolves to kill the two sons she has by Jason, not because the children have done anything wrong, but because it is the best way her tortured mind can think of deeply hurting Jason. Thereupon Medea deceives Jason by pretending to apologize to him and telling him that she wants to send reconciling gifts to the king's daughter so that at least their children will be spared from exile. She then sends the poisoned robe and crown as a gift to Glauce, with her children as the gift-bearers.

In the next scene a messenger arrives to recount Glauce and Creon's deaths (deaths were never shown on stage in ancient Greece). When the children arrived with the robes and coronet, Glauce immediately put them on and went to find her father. The poison overtook her and she fell to the floor, dying a painful death. Creon clutched her tightly as he tried to save her and, by coming in contact with the robe and coronet, was poisoned as well.

Medea wrestles with herself over whether she can bring herself to kill her own children, speaking lovingly to them all the while in a rather chilling scene. After a moment of hesitation, she eventually justifies it as a way of saving them from the retribution of Jason and Creon‘s family, and rushes offstage with a knife to kill her children. As the chorus of women laments her decision, the children are heard screaming backstage. The chorus considers interfering, but in the end does nothing. Medea then appears above the stage flying through the sky with the bodies of her children in the chariot of the sun god Helios, her grandfather, mocking and gloating over Jason‘s pain. She prophesies a bad end for Jason before escaping towards Athens with her children’s bodies. The play ends with the chorus lamenting that such tragic and unexpected evils should result from the will of the gods.

[Medea by Frederick Sandys, 1866-68]

Euripides is considered the master of psychology among the ancient playwrights. The fate of his characters is less influenced by divine coincidences than by their own passions, contradictions, interpersonal misunderstandings and complex relationship problems.

However, the image of a woman driven by thirst for revenge and hatred disturbed his contemporaries, so initially the Medea was not very popular. In addition, Euripides completely de-heroized the Argonaut myth, which had been known since Homer's time, and traced the conflict between Medea and Jason back to purely human motives. That Medea kills her children to get revenge on Jason also is an invention of Euripides. In older versions, the boys were slain by the Corinthians out of revenge for the murder of Creon. The flight in Helios' sun chariot is another element added by Euripides. Euripides has created the tragic story of the destruction of a family and the transition from unconditional love to maddened destructiveness. At the same time, Euripides anchors Medea's acts in comprehensible, realistic motifs: in a world determined by men, she, a foreign woman, is in every respect “the stranger.”

Today the play is part of the standard theater repertoire and one of the most frequently performed pieces of antiquity.

There have been countless adaptations: for the theater, such as by Seneca (first century CE), Grillparzer (1821), Jean Anouilh (1946), a Broadway play in 1947, a Japanese "Kabuki Medea," and on film, for example in 1969 by Pasolini with Maria Callas as Medea, as well as by Lars von Tier in 1988. Several operas were also based on the play, the best one is Médée (1797) by Luigi Cherubini.

To conclude, a few words about Euripides (480-406 BCE). More than 90 plays have been attributed to him, of which 18 have come down to us intact (a 19th one, Rhesus, us of suspect authenticity) - which is more than from any other classical Greek playwright. Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. In his tragedies, imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates, but he also introduced the new genre of tragicomedy and wrote more romantic plays, as Helen.

I have read Medea in the translation by James Morwood in Oxford World's Classics.

Online translation by Gilbert Murray (1914).

Illustrations from Wikipedia, from which I have also borrowed some parts of the synopsis.

Greatest Plays of All Time

 

Electra, by Sophocles (420-414 BCE)

Electra is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies, as the archetypal vengeful soul. Electra's parents were King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. Her sisters were Iphigenia and Chrysothemis, and her brother was Orestes. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, led the expedition to Troy to recover Helen, the wife of his brother Menelaus, who had eloped with the Trojan prince Paris. So that his fleet could sail, Agamemnon was compelled to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis. After returning from the Trojan War ten years later with his concubine Cassandra (one of the spoils of war), Agamemnon was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, who then became rulers of Mycenae (Aeschylus based his play Agamemnon on this incident, while his Libation Bearers addresses the same story as Electra, but in a different way). Electra and Orestes (who were absent at the time of the murder) therefore harbor a deep grudge against their mother and her lover.

[Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon, Frederic Leighton c. 1869]

Electra remains unmarried and lives with her mother, although she is treated as a slave by the usurpers Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. She passes her days in public mourning for her murdered father and prays that her brother Orestes will return home to avenge Agamemnon's murder. Electra is contrasted with her sister Chrysothemis, who offers no resistance and enjoys a comfortable life. Electra demands revenge on Clytemnestra and Aegisthos and accuses them of having killed Agamemnon only to keep their love going. On the other hand, Clytemnestra, who feels no remorse about the murder, claims that her husband deserved to die because he sacrificed her other daughter Iphigenia at the altar of Artemis in the Trojan War, so he could send out his ships to fight in that war.

Meanwhile, Electra's brother Orestes is living far from home to escape a fate similar to that of Agamemnon. Electra has sent him away from Mycenae when he still was a boy to save his life and sees in him an ally in her plans for revenge and sincerely hopes for his return.

At the beginning of the play Orestes has grown into manhood and returns to Mycenae on the orders of the Oracle of Delphi, to take revenge on his father's murderers. He is accompanied by his friend Pylades, as well as his elderly tutor - the man who has in fact brought him up in exile. He now sends that tutor ahead to say in Mycenae (where his mother lives) that Orestes was killed in a chariot race in Delphi. Clytemnestra thinks her prayers have been heard, Electra sinks deeper into her misery and lamentation. The messenger says that two men will follow with the urn, but in reality these are Orestes himself in disguise with Pylades. 

The ruse drives Electra to despair. She has not been made aware of Orestes' plan and the main action of the play is concerned with her individual plight and the impact of Orestes' trick on her emotions and personality. When Orestes presents her the alleged urn, she begins to lament unaware that her brother is in fact standing alive next to her, until he makes himself known. She is overjoyed that he is alive, but in their excitement they nearly reveal his identity, and the tutor comes out from the palace to urge them on. It so happens that Aegisthus is away, so this is their chance. Orestes and Pylades lose no more time, go to the palace and kill Clytemnestra. They hide the corpse under a sheet and when Aegisthus returns, they tell him that it is Orestes. When he lifts the sheet to check it, Orestes reveals himself. He escorts Aegisthus to the hearth (the very place where Agamemnon was murdered) to kill him, with the players leaving the stage before the murder is committed (murder was never shown in Greek drama, so the play closes before the deed is done).

The final part of the myth is not part of the Sophocles play, but has been taken up by Aeschylus in Eumenides: after killing his mother and Aegisthus, Orestes was pursued by the Furies to Delphi, where he was purified by the god Apollo, and then to Athens, where he was tried and acquitted by a court of citizens.

[Clytemnestra by John Collier, 1882]

This is an unrelentingly grim play about suffering and the resulting cycle of vengeance. According to the principle of vigilante justice, suffering is settled with suffering, death is avenged by death. Unfortunately, revenge is still seen as an option among less developed minds even today. Of course such behavior is never justified, for it leads to an unending cycle of violence. I do not think that Electra was right when she demanded revenge on Clytemnestra for the murder of her father - the result for her is endless suffering (she is still alive at the end of the play, but I can't imagine that she will ever lead a happy life).

The same events were also addressed in two earlier plays (besides Homer's Odyssey), The Libation Bearers (458 BCE), in the Oresteia Trilogy by Aeschylus, and in Electra by Euripides, probably written in the mid 410s BCE. Many later playwrights were also inspired by this subject matter, such as Voltaire, Hofmannsthal, and Eugene O'Neill. The scene in which Electra doesn't recognize her brother makes of course good theater. The most famous adaptation of Sophocles' play was Electra (premiered Berlin 1903) by the Austrian author Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and this play in its turn was set to music by Richard Strauss, whose still very popular and famous opera Electra was premiered in Dresden in 1909.

I have read the translation by David Raeburn in Penguin Classics.

Free online translation by Ian Johnston

Images from Wikipedia.

Greatest Plays of All Time

Antigone, by Sophocles (441 BCE)

Sophocles (497-406 BCE) dedicated three plays to the story of Oedipus, who kills his father and marries his mother, not knowing they are his parents, after which his family is cursed for three generations: Oedipus the King (Oedipus Rex), Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. As I have already treated Oedipus Rex in my discussion of the opera Stravinsky wrote about this play, in which the composer closely followed the original, I will here discuss Antigone which is just as famous.

[Antigone in front of the dead Polynices
by Nikiforos Lytras, 1865]

Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus and his mother Jocasta. In Oedipus the King Sophocles describes how Oedipus unwittingly marries his own mother, the queen consort of Thebes. Oedipus grew up in Corinth under the assumption that he was the biological son of Polybus and his wife. Hearing rumors about his parentage, he consulted the Delphic Oracle and was informed that he was fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus therefore fled from Corinth before he could commit these sins. During his travels, Oedipus then happened to encounter his real father Laius on a narrow mountain pass. After a heated argument regarding right-of-way, Oedipus killed Laius, unknowingly fulfilling the first half of the prophecy. Oedipus continued his journey to Thebes and discovered that the city was being terrorized by the sphinx. He solved the sphinx's riddle, and the grateful city, along with the acting regent Creon, elected Oedipus as its new king. Oedipus accepted the throne and married Laius' widowed queen Jocasta, his actual mother, thereby fulfilling the second half of the prophecy. Jocasta bore her son four children: two girls, Antigone and Ismene, and two twin boys, Eteocles and Polynices.

When his city is afterward struck by a plague, Oedipus learns that it is divine punishment for his patricide and incest. Hearing this news, Jocasta hangs herself, and Oedipus gouges out his eyes and goes into exile with his daughter Antigone (described in Oedipus at Colonus).

Oedipus' two sons, the twins Eteocles and Polynices, next lead opposite sides in Thebes' civil war, and die fighting each other for the throne - even killing each other. Creon, the new ruler of Thebes and brother of the former Queen Jocasta, has decided that Eteocles fought on the "good side" as a "patriot" and will be honored and Polynices who was on the "wrong side" as a "traitor" will be held in public shame. The rebel brother's body will not be sanctified by holy rites and must lie unburied on the battlefield outside the city walls, prey for vultures and jackals.

This is where the present play starts. Antigone wants to bury her brother Polynices anyway, considering it her religious duty as a close family member, and asks her sister Ismene to help her. The more lawful and obedient Ismene is startled, refuses and tries to dissuade Antigone from her decision. Antigone has a strong and bold character and decides to defy Creon's decree despite the consequences she may face, in order to honor her deceased brother.

Creon then hears from a sentry that Polynices' body has been given funeral rites and a symbolic burial with a thin covering of earth. Antigone is arrested near the grave and she does not deny her actions. She argues unflinchingly with Creon about the immorality of the edict and the morality of her actions - she is observing a higher law of religious observance and familial duty. Haemon, Creon's son, enters to pledge allegiance to his father, even though he is engaged to Antigone. He initially seems willing to forsake Antigone, but when Haemon gently tries to persuade his father to spare Antigone, claiming that "under cover of darkness the city mourns for the girl", the discussion deteriorates, and the two men are soon bitterly insulting each other. When Creon threatens to execute Antigone in front of his son, Haemon leaves, vowing never to see Creon again.

King Creon then orders Antigone buried alive in a cave. By not killing her directly, he hopes to pay minimal respects to the gods. But Creon’s mind is changed by the blind prophet Tiresias, who advises that leaving Polynices unburied is an insult to the gods, whose anger is to be feared. He manages to convince Creon, but is too late to save the impetuous Antigone, who has already hanged herself in her tomb-cave. This leads Creon’s son to commit suicide as well and follow his beloved in death. The chain of deaths continues when Queen Eurydice, the wife of Creon, also commits suicide, cursing Creon whom she blames for her son's death. Plagued with guilt, Creon abdicates the throne, crushed by the tragic chain of events that he had unwittingly set in motion. He can be seen as a tragic hero, losing everything for upholding what he believed was right. After Creon condemns himself, the leader of the chorus closes by saying that although the gods punish the proud, punishment brings wisdom.

In the person of Creon, Sophocles exposes the dangers of the absolute ruler, or autocrat, to whom few will speak freely and openly their true opinions, and who therefore commits grievous errors. Creon initially says he is working on behalf of all citizens, but later with a slip of the tongue he tells his son Haemon that he owns the city of Thebe. It goes without saying that Antigone is unfortunately still very relevant in our times of growing autocracy.

Antigone has been often adapted: as a modern play by Jean Cocteau (1922), Jean Anouilh (1944) and Bertolt Brecht (1948) - by these last two in the political context of anti-fascism. In classical music, Felix Mendelssohn wrote a suite of incidental music for a German version by Ludwig Tieck (1841); operas were composed by Arthur Honegger (1927) and Carl Orff (1949). The best cinema adaptation was made in 1961 by Greek director Yiorgos Tzavellas with Irene Papas as a powerful Antigone.

In conclusion a few words about Sophocles (497/6-496/5). Sophocles was born into a wealthy family and he was highly educated. Sophocles' first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those of Aeschylus; and earlier than, or contemporary with, those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus. For almost fifty years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens which took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in thirty competitions, won twenty-four, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won thirteen competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles; Euripides won four. The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedipus and Antigone: they are generally known as the Theban plays, though each was part of a different trilogy (the other members of which are now lost). Sophocles influenced the development of drama, most importantly by adding a third actor, thereby reducing the importance of the chorus. He also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights. Sophocles died at the age of 90 or 91 in the winter of 406/5 BC, having seen, within his lifetime, both the Greek triumph in the Persian Wars, and the bloodletting of the Peloponnesian War.

I have read the translation by Robert Fagles in Penguin Classics.

Open access verse translation by Robin Bond.

My synopsis copies some parts of the English Wikipedia article on Antigone. Illustration from Wikipedia.

Greatest Plays of All Time

 

A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), by Tennessee Williams

A claustrophobic play set in a cramped, shabby two-room apartment in a crowded downtown section of New Orleans. The background of the play is formed by the decline of the aristocratic culture of the old southern states and the change in social conditions in modern America, characterized by industrialization, tough market laws and ethnic diversity. Well-bred and sensitive, but fading southern belle Blanche Dubois comes from a wealthy Southern family that has recently lost its money and prestige. To the outside world, but especially to herself, Blanche pretends that everything is still going great. She lives in her own fantasy world and never tells the truth, also not to people close to her. Blanche's inability to distinguish between illusion and reality will eventually be her undoing. 

At the beginning of the play Blanche arrives to stay with her sister Stella, who is married to the vulgar and violent macho Stanley Kowalski with Polish roots. Blanche is deeply shocked because her sister's lifestyle is not what she is used to. She tells Stella that the family's old plantation, Belle Reve, has been "lost" and that the principal of the school where she teaches English has given her leave to calm her nerves. That is why she has come to stay with Stella. From the start she is on a collision course with Stanley, who is the opposite of the refined Blanche. The battle for dominance over Stella of the two protagonists is symbolic of the general battle of the sexes, but also of other confrontations, for example between backward-looking nostalgia and progressive optimism about the future, between the social subcultures of the old southern aristocracy and the new Eastern European immigrants, and between the opposing value systems of art and culture in contrast to crude materialism. In addition, the psychological profiles of Blanche and Stanley could not be further apart: on the one hand neurotic hypersensitivity, on the other hand insensitive animal vitality. This is also expressed in two different body language behavioral patterns. Blanche's cultivated but slightly affected behavior and the emphasis on her noble origins are like a red rag to Stanley.

Little by little we find out that Blanche has fled to her sister to escape her past. Her husband committed suicide because he presumably could not live with his homosexual urges. There is also a persistent rumor that Blanche had a relationship with a 17-year old student and that she eventually had to go into prostitution in order to support herself, after the family estate had to be sold off to pay her family's debts. Tensions between Stanley and Blanche run high. Via colleagues at the company where he works, who regularly visit the hometown of Blanche and Stella, he is slowly digging out the truth about Blanche's life prior to coming to New Orleans. This motivates him to destroy a budding romance between Blanche and one of his buddies (the only sensitive one among his military veteran friends).

When Stella has to go to the hospital to give birth, it comes to a confrontation. Stanley rapes Blanche, who then collapses completely. Stella eventually has Blanche admitted to a clinic. The last words she speaks in the play are: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

By the way, the allegorical title is taken from the real-life Desire streetcar line in New Orleans, which bore this name because its terminus was located in Desire Street. Blanche boards this line when coming to stay with her sister. The tram line, which had existed since 1920, was converted to a bus line in 1948, a year after the publication of Williams' play.

In 1948, Williams received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) is considered one of the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama. Another famous play by him is The Glass Menagerie (1944), in which he addressed the conflict between illusion and reality, as he did in Streetcar.

A Streetcar Named Desire has been several times adapted for such various media as film, TV, opera and ballet. The most famous film version was directed by Elia Kazan in 1951, and featured Karl Malden, Marlon Brando, and Kim Hunter from the Broadway play, plus Vivien Leigh from the London production in the part of Blanche. The movie won four Academy Awards. The ending was slightly altered in the film: Stella does not remain with Stanley, as she does in the play.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

A Streetcar Named Desire has been published in Penguin Classics.

Greatest Plays of All Time

 

Thunderstorm (1933), by Cao Yu

Cao Yu (1910- 1996) is regarded as the most important Chinese playwright of the 20th century. His best-known works are Thunderstorm (1933), Sunrise (1936) and Peking Man (1940). It is largely through the efforts of Cao Yu that the modern Chinese "spoken theater" (huaju, vernacular drama, as opposed to traditional drama forms as for example jingju or "Peking Opera") took root in modern Chinese literature. 

[Cao Yu]

Cao Yu grew up in the cosmopolitan city of Tianjin and later went to Tsinghua University in Beijing. He graduated in 1934 with a degree in Western Languages and Literature. During his time at university, Cao Yu improved his abilities in both Russian and English. His course of studies required reading the works of such western authors as Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, Bernard Shaw and Eugene O'Neill, as well as translations of classical Greek writers as Euripides and Aeschylus. In 1945, Cao Yu would also translate Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet into Chinese. This immersion in western literature would greatly influence Yu's style in the "spoken theater," which until then had had little tradition in China.

During his last year at the university, Cao Yu completed his first work, Thunderstorm, which would mark a milestone in Chinese theater history. It formed a trilogy with the two plays mentioned above and these realistic and social-critical dramas ushered in the first "golden age" of modern Chinese drama in the mid 1930s. Other important drama authors were for example Guo Moruo, Hong Shen and Lao She. Huaju represents a shift in the Chinese perception of drama, and the influence of Western dramatic theory on Chinese playwrights.

The play is set in the summer of 1925 at the mansion of wealthy mine director Zhou Puyuan, aged 55, a man with a decided air of authority. He has two sons in his household, one called Ping, aged 28, by a woman named Shiping whom he drove away with their younger son Dahai 27 years ago and whom he believes drowned. The other, 17, by his second wife Fanyi, is called Chong. Ping is handsome and popular with women, Chong is a romantic dreamer. Dahai works as miner in the coal mines of Zhou; he is a mine workers' representative and has a stubborn character. Shiping is in her late forties and works at a school. Zhou is married to the 20-year younger Fanyi, a refined and physically fragile woman with a passionate and resolute spirit; she has had a love affair with Zhou's son Ping. The Zhou servants Lu Gui and Lu Gui's daughter Sifeng ("Fourth Phoenix") are respectively Shiping's husband and daughter. Lu Gui is a coarse man and a gambler; Sifeng, aged 18, is a healthy, physically well-developed young woman.

None of these people is initially aware of the connection of the two families through Zhou Puyuan and Shiping. In fact, Ping is now having a love affair with Fourth Phoenix, without either of them realizing that she is his half-sister. Ping's (half) brother Chong is also in love with Sifeng, but his love is unrequited.

Then Shiping, whom Zhou Yuanpu has assumed dead for 27 years, shows up at the Zhous' and eventually all become aware of their interrelationships, which leads to high drama. Horrified to discover that the father-to-be of the child she is expecting is none other than her half-brother, Fourth Phoenix rushes out of the house in a raging thunderstorm and is electrocuted by a faulty electrical cable. Chong, chasing after her, is also electrocuted. Ping shoots himself. Both wives, Fanyi and Shiping, go mad from the shock of loosing all their children within only five minutes time. The patriarch, Zhou Puyuan, having set off the whole tragedy, is left to face the consequences of his actions.

So lots and lots of drama in this early play! Thematically, Thunderstorm can be compared to Ibsen's Ghosts, with which it shares elements such as a respected patriarch who has, in fact, impregnated his servant, a romance between his children (who do not know that they are half-siblings), and a climactic revelation of this situation in the play. The staccato, realistic dialogue has been written with great skill, and Cao Yu deftly manages the complexities of his meany-threaded plot. Thunderstorm neatly observes the Aristotelian unities.

Several film adaptations and remake stage productions have been made. The most famous - very loose - movie adaptation is The Curse of the Golden Flower, an epic wuxia film written and directed by Zhang Yimou, with Chow Yun-fat and Gong Li. In this film the story from Thunderstorm has been transferred to one of the imperial courts in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (10th c.), with the Emperor in the place of Puyuan.

A History of Chinese Drama, by William Dolby (London, 1976). Thunderstorm is discussed on pp. 208-212.

Thunderstorm is included in The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama (Columbia University Press, 2010).

Photo from Wikipedia.


Greatest Plays of All Time

Friends (1967) by Abe Kobo

"Friends" is a very creepy play in which a sort of "holy family", almost like a weird sect, takes over the life of a lonely salaryman. The play depicts an aggressively benevolent family hell-bent on befriending a lonely bachelor. With a smile they chant love for one's neighbors and solidarity with the lonely as the ideal and in the process they completely disrupt the man's life, seduce his fiancee, and finally kill him. The so-called good intentions of the family invading the man's apartment turn out to be false and hypocritical and they themselves are transformed into monsters. That doesn't mean this is a dark play: thanks to the black humor there is a lot to laugh as well.

[Abe Kobo]

In fact, the play is based on a short story, "Intruders" (Kaijin) Abe wrote in 1951, in which a salaryman living alone in a small apartment is visited by complete strangers, a large family with grown-up sons and a daughter, who take over his apartment and his life. They use his money and he has to wait on them as their servant. They even steal his girlfriend. Although they behave very dictatorially, everything is decided "democratically" by the majority. In this 1951 satire Abe was writing a political story, for it is clear he is referring to the American occupation of Japan (which ended one year later, in 1952). The greatest difference with the play "Friends" is that Abe removed the political satire and instead broadened the focus of the play to encompass the general human condition.

Here is the plot:

The city at night. A strange family of eight sings the popular song "Poor broken necklace... Little lost beads, little lost beads." They then enter the apartment of a young man (who is 31 and works as section head in a commercial firm), without invitation or introduction, and announce that they will save him from his loneliness by moving in and befriending him. Restringing "the little lost beads" is their mission!

They consist of a father, who at first glance might be taken for a clergyman, a mother in old-fashioned dress, an eighty-year old grandmother, an elder son who is clever but frail-looking and rather gloomy (he is a former private detective), a younger son who is an amateur boxer, an eldest daughter of about 30, a prospective old maid who still dreams about marriage, a middle daughter of 24, sweet looking and giving the impression of being the crystallization of good will, and a youngest daughter who is a little devil, although she doesn't look it.

Shocked by the strange invasion, the young man first of all tries to persuade them to leave. But his reasoning proves useless against their cheerful madness. The man then calls the police to complain about their trespassing, but both the caretaker of his apartment and the two police officers who arrive on the scene don't believe him, and go away without doing anything.

The family answers with various far-fetched and hair-splitting arguments to the man asking them to leave, and they impose a majority-decision "democratic" rule. They also argue skillfully with the man's fiancée and her brother, and the man has to allow the family to stay with him. In this way, slowly but effectively, the family strips the young man of his reasons for living: his fiancee, his self-esteem, and his interest in his work. They do everything possible to convince him, in the name of brotherhood and love, that his desire for privacy and his choice of companions is an aberration.

One night, half a month later, the middle daughter discovers that the eldest daughter and the man are sleeping together. She reports to the others that the eldest daughter has promised the man to help him escape. The man is than as punishment incarcerated in the coat rack in the hall of the apartment, which is converted into a cage. The middle daughter is in charge of bringing the prisoner his food. One morning, when everyone is out, she gives him a glass of poisoned milk (with the key to his prison, falsely claiming she loves him and wants to help him). The man suffers terrible convulsions and dies. The middle daughter then mutters: "If only you hadn't turned against us, we would have been no more than company to you..." Quietly sobbing, she tenderly drapes a blanket over the cage. The second son comes home and says: "What, you, did you do it again!" To which she answers: "What else could I do..." The family now has to leave and dresses for travel. The father mourns the man with the words: "The deceased was always a good friend to us..." Then waving their handkerchiefs, the family marches off. The audience can still hear their eerie laughter when the lights go out.

What does this play mean? Some critics have written that it is about socialization (in other words, Abe has a positive stand towards the actions of the family) but nothing could be farther from the truth. This unusual variation on the Theater of the Absurd is about the destruction of the individual. Whether it be a destructive political ideology as communism with its blind solidarity, a personality obliterating religious cult or a weird sect, or "majority principle" democracy going too far by neglecting the rights of minorities, there are many dangers threatening individuality in modern times. Abe gives a sound warning against those trends. And he tells us to be alert, for we can be perpetrators as well as victims.

The play, which has been called highly inventive and well-crafted, is Abe's masterwork for the theater. Abe Kobo (1924-1993) is in the West in the first place known for his novels as The Woman in the Dunes, but he is an all-round author also known for his plays, his essays and his short stories.

 

Kobe Abe, Friends, A play, translated by Donald Keene (Tuttle Publishing 1971).

The short story "The Intruders" has been included in Beyond the Curve (1991) translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. See my post about Abe's short stories at this blog.

Greatest Plays of All Time

 

The Lady Aoi (1954), a Modern Noh play by Mishima Yukio

Mishima Yukio (1925-1970) was not only one of Japan's greatest novelists, he was also one of his greatest modern playwrights, with a total of 62 plays to his name. He not only wrote modern plays, as Madame de Sade, but also made modern versions of Kabuki and Noh plays, and in some cases even used traditional music and the classical Japanese language. That is not the case with the eight modern Noh plays Mishima wrote in the 1950s; here he used the modern language and contemporary settings, only selecting the general theme of a given play, or some salient details. His Noh plays are completely original and not adaptations of existing plays (just as Cocteau's treatment of Oedipus in his Infernal Machine, to name one example from the West). Although Mishima's Noh plays could, so to speak, be played on a bench in Central Park, yet they preserved the outer form and inner spirit of Noh. 

[Hannya type Noh mask,
as worn by Lady Rokujo after she turns into an ogre]

At the heart of Noh lies the accidental encounter through which the workings of karma are revealed. A traveling priest encounters a person who is not what he or she seems to be, a warrior, or someone fallen from high estate, and later the ghost of that person will appear and have to be exorcised. Mishima preserved the haunting mood of classical Noh, and always managed to suggest the uncanny symbolic quality of the original, but his characters and situations have a contemporary hardness. 

The Lady Aoi is based on the Noh play Aoi no Ue, written by Zeami, and was in its turn based on the ninth chapter of The Tale of Genji. In the 11th c. novel by Murasaki Shikibu, an incident takes places during the festival of the Kamo Shrines, the Aoi Matsuri, which was the greatest event in Kyoto in Heian times. The aristocrats who in their ox-drawn carriages have come to see the procession with Genji at the head, have created a terrific traffic jam. A quarrel erupts between Lady Aoi, Genji's principal wife, and one of his lovers, the Lady Rokujo. Although a proud lady (the wife of the deceased crown prince), she is now of lesser status and her carriage is forced into a corner by the attendants of Lady Aoi, so that she can't see anything of the procession. She feels great resentment about this public humiliation, and unconsciously wishes her rival dead. Lady Aoi is pregnant and therefore weaker than usual. When the time of her delivery nears, an evil spirit possesses her and she suffers terribly. Genji has numerous rituals performed to exorcise it (in case of illness in the Heian period, priests and exorcists were more important than doctors!), but to no avail. Finally, diviners succeed in compelling the spirit that possesses Aoi to speak. The words that issue from Aoi's mouth are not in her own voice, but - as Genji realizes to his horror - the voice of Lady Rokujo... After giving birth, Lady Aoi suffers a sudden seizure and dies. Read more about this in my post about Aoi (part of a series about The Tale of Genji).

In the Noh play based on the Aoi chapter, the story has been changed for dramatic effect: the play is wholly focused on Lady Rokujo as the possessing spirit. Lady Aoi does not appear in the play, and neither does Genji. Aoi is merely represented by a folded robe at the front of the stage over which Lady Rokujo (the shite) does battle with the exorcising priest (the waki). The drama centers on the jealousy of Lady Rokujo, who cannot help being transformed into an ogre. But as she is an ex-crown princess, the actor needs to express her dignity as well by graceful movements. The spirit battle ends - contrary to the novel - in the triumph of the Law of the Buddha and Rokujo's spirit is subjugated - she throws a fan and exits while covering herself with a kimono.

Mishima's play takes place in a hospital room, late at night. At the back of the stage stands a bed in which the sick Aoi lies sleeping (she has severe panic attacks). Her husband, Wakabayashi Hikaru, is visiting her (his first name, "Hikaru," is the epithet of Genji, "The Shining," and  like Genji, Wakabayashi is described as an "unusually good-looking man"). A libidinous, provocative nurse warns Hikaru about a mysterious woman who visits Aoi every night while she sleeps. Shortly afterwards, Rokujo Yasuko, a former lover of Hikaru, enters the room and confesses that she torments Aoi in her dreams every evening by placing "flowers of pain" on her pillow.

She asks Hikaru to confess to her that he still loves her, but Hikaru refuses. Rokujo then conjures up a vision of their previous intimacy, when they went by sailboat to Rokujo's country house, hoping to wake up Hikaru's old feelings. The hallucination is interrupted by Aoi’s loud screams of pain and Hikaru finds himself back in the present. Rokujo has suddenly disappeared.

Confused, he picks up the phone standing next to the bed and calls Rokujo at her home. She tells him that she has been asleep during the whole night. She has not left her house, she says. Hikaru now realizes that "the thing" he saw and talked to here in the sickroom, was a "living spirit," a subconscious projection of Aoi's suppressed jealousy. The ghost returns, saying from outside the room that she has forgotten her gloves. Hikaru picks up the gloves and goes out into the hall to give them to her. At the same time, we can hear the voice of the real Lady Rokujo over the telephone, which was not returned to the hook, saying "hello, hello". At the last "hello" from the telephone, Aoi trusts out her arms at the telephone and with a horrible cry collapses over the bed and dies. The stage immediately blacks out. 

 

[Mishima Yukio]

Mishima called The Lady Aoi his personal favorite: "Aoi no Ue is my favorite. On the one hand, it's exciting, but it's not as highly philosophical as the rest (of the modern Noh plays), so that everyone can draw something from it. Still, it's not just a cheap drama about jealousy. Bringing all of this under one roof takes talent and I admire every actor who can do it."

The translation by Donald Keene of Mishima's five modern Noh plays was based on a publication by Shinchosha where these five were brought together in 1956. It was also made in the hope of both writer and translator that they could have some of the plays performed in New York (something never realized, although Mishima paid a lengthy visit for this purpose to New York in 1957). Later Mishima would write three more modern modern Noh plays, but these five are central to his work in this respect. Besides The Lady Aoi, they are:

- Sotoba Komachi (1952)
A poet meets a repulsive old woman named Komachi in a park. She indulges in thoughts of a night 80 years ago, and together with the help of the poet, who acts the part of the military officer with whom she fell in love (and danced in the famous Rokumeikan ballroom), they relive that night. The poet realizes that she is still beautiful, and sees past her ragged clothes and wretched body. But when he expresses his love to her, he dies.

- The Damask Drum (1951)
An old janitor who falls in love with the client of a fashionable couturiere in the building opposite with whom he has never interacted before. He is given a drum that, when it makes a note, is supposed to bring about her love; but the drum makes no sound (it has been made of twill) and feeling cheated, he jumps to his death. As a ghost, he continues to drum, but gives up after the 99th beat. The woman appears to him and says that she heard him but that he had to hit the hundredth time as well - now he has failed.

- Kantan (1950)
About a magical pillow that lets everyone who sleeps on it recognize the senselessness of the world (based on an eponymous Chinese story). Jiro, a nihilist, puts the pillow to the test. He wakes up and, to his own surprise, develops a whole new joy in life.

- Hanjo (1955)
Hanako swaps fans with her lover Yoshio; they vow to see each other again one day. But Yoshio does not return, and Hanako goes mad, waiting for Yoshio every day with the fan in her hand. A newspaper article reminds Yoshio of Hanako's existence and he visits her; to his surprise, however, she says she doesn't recognize him.

Five Modern No Plays by Yukio Mishima. Translated, with an introduction, by Donald Keene (Tuttle Publishers, 1986, often reprinted)

For the originals of these Noh plays, see the list at my blog article Japanese No Plays in Translation.

Greatest Plays of All Time