Customer Reviews

Mishima on Stage: The Black Lizard and Other Plays

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have to admit to not being less than excited to see "Iwashi-uri" (translated here as The Sardine Seller's Net of Love) on the Kabuki-za program back in 1995. First, it was a post-war play, which like many post Meiji Period plays, had proved to be dull and spiritless works. They also were better described not as kabuki plays but "plays starring kabuki actors" since they (usually by design) lacked the rhythm and poetry that make the classical plays so enjoyable, even when dealing with great tragedy. Second, it was written by Mishima Yukio. Though I had majored in Japanese at college, Mishima's writings were conspicuously absent from the curricula of my classes. While this was no doubt due to his strident right-wing politics and famous ritual suicide, it was enough to prejudice myself against his works.

When I actual saw the play, though, I couldn't have been more delighted. Mishima had written the play keeping true to the rhythms, importance of music, and playfulness of the plays of the past, and if I had not known the name of the playwright, I might have mistaken it for a much older work.

"Mishima on Stage" brings this play and other kabuki plays by Mishima, as well as a number of his insightful psychological portraits written for the Shingeki stage, in script form, allowing readers not only to experience Mishima's talents as a playwright (as mentioned in the introduction, he is considered the greatest Japanese playwright of the post-war period by many critics) and compare the difference in structure between plays written in classical kabuki style, those specific written for modern theater, and even updated versions of Noh plays.

Larry Kominz is an excellent kabuki scholar with an extensive knowledge of the theater that stretches from its very beginnings (he has also written about the long history of plays about the Soga Brothers, which date back to the Genroku Period) to modern day theater, as shown in this book. One of the pitfalls of translating kabuki into English is that much of the poetic language and wordplay so integral to the theater can either be lost or translated clumsily. As such, Larry chose his collaborators well, especially Mark Oshima, who is not only a first-rate scholar and translator, but also a professional Kiyomoto performer. Mark's years of performing have given him a great feel for the cadence of plays and the natural delivery of lines.

I highly recommend "Mishima on Stage" for those who have an interest in Japanese theater or literature.