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