Notes on “Yoshitsune & the Thousand Cherry Trees: a Reading”

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Notes on “Yoshitsune & The Thousand Cherry Trees: A Reading”

Odanaka Akihiro Translated by Alan Cummings

On These Notes Uchiyama Mikiko’s essay, “Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees: A Reading” was originally included in her 1989 work Jōrurishi no jūhasseiki (A Jōruri History of the 18th Century), which was awarded the 22nd Kawatake Prize by the Japanese Society for Theatre Research. Over a quar- ter of a century has passed since its ﬁ rst publication, but the passing of time has in no way lessened the essay’s impact. Bunraku (properly called jōruri, but here I will refer to it as bunraku for the convenience of English-speaking readers) began as epic poetry, but as Japanese society matured in the 18th century, it took on elements of drama in the Western sense. Uchiyama uses close readings of the play to reveal the unique and intricate development that bunraku underwent in this period, and it is this which has ensured her essay’s continued relevance. To put it another way, her essay explores how Aristotle’s concepts of epic and drama co-existed in bunraku. Uchiyama writes in the extremely condensed, free style that is characteristic of Japanese scholarship on classical literature and theatre. In order to introduce her work to English-speaking readers, we considered restructuring and adding additional material to her original essay. But in the end we decided that this would seriously compromise Uchiyama’s style, and instead we opted to add detailed footnotes and this introduction to explain the world of the play and the essay’s origi- nality.

About Uchiyama Mikiko

Uchiyama, a major scholar of bunraku and traditional Japanese theatre, is currently professor emerita of Waseda University. Her most important works include A Jōruri History of the 18th Century and Bunraku nijuseiki kōki no kagayaki – gekihyō to bunrakukō (Bunraku: The Glory of Late 20th Century Bunraku – Theatre Reviews and Essays) (Waseda Daigaku Shuppanbu, 2010). Another mark of her status as a scholar of Japanese literature and traditional performing arts are her contributions to the important Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei series, including her co-edited volumes on the playwrights Takeda Izumo and Namiki Sōsuke (with Tsunoda Ichirō, 1991) and on Chikamatsu Hanji (with Nobuhiro Shinji, 1996). These have become the standard texts of these plays for contemporary scholars and readers. Other major scholarly contributions by Uchiyama include her editorial work on the ten-volume collection of contemporary scholarship on kabuki and bunraku, Iwanami kōza kabuki / bunraku (Iwanami Course: Kabuki / Bunraku), and the edited volume, Jōruri shirōto kōshaku (Amateur Lectures on Jōruri). This was a collection of writing by jōruri chanters, compiled by the pre-war ultra-nationalist and bunraku patron, Sugiyama Shigemaru (1864-1935, also the father of the surrealist novelist, Yumeno Kyūsaku). However, Uchiyama’s involvement with bunraku is not just on the textual level – she also has a long engagement with theatrical practice. There is probably no other contemporary scholar who has as much direct involvement with the theatre. For a long time she reviewed bunraku performances for the Yomiuri shinbun, and it is said that news of her presence in the audience always raised the tension back-

– 3 – English Journal of JSTR stage at the National Theatre. She has also been involved in the revival of plays that had fallen out of the repertoire, leading research groups with performers and helping to create accurate performance texts. One recent example was Toyotake Rotayū’s 2009 performance of the third act of Wada gassen onnamai zuru, performed as part of the Waseda University Theatre Museum Global COE program. Uchiyama has created her own unique brand of scholarship through a focus both on bunraku texts and also on contemporary performance. This can be seen in the essay translated here, which constructs its arguments not just on textual analysis but also on the dynamics of bunraku performance.

The World of The Tale of the Heike

A major barrier to contemporary audiences’ enjoyment of classical theatre in both Japan and the West is the large amount of tacit knowledge required. For example, without a detailed knowledge of the Trojan Wars, audiences will fi nd it diffi cult to enter into the dramatic world of classical Greek tragedies. We can say the same thing about Japanese traditional theatre. For example, many plays are based upon classical literary sources like Heike monogatari (The Tale of the Heike) about the 12th century war between two warrior clans, or Taiheiki (The Taiheiki) about another nationwide confl ict in the 14th century.1 Without a knowledge of these sources, it can be diffi cult to fully enjoy the world of Japanese traditional theatre. Yoshitsune senbon zakura (Yoshitsune and The Thousand Cherry Trees) is based upon the world of The Tale of the Heike.2 Like the classical literary accounts of the Trojan Wars, including those by Homer, in Japan The Tale of the Heike came to function as a rich matrix for retellings in diff erent genres in later centuries. It tells the story of the war between the Heike (Taira) and Genji (Minamoto) warrior clans. Rather than being purely textual, The Tale of the Heike was transmitted as a performing art by a type of blind, itinerant performers known as biwa hōshi, in a similar fashion to The Song of Roland in medieval Europe. The two clans had long been rivals, but in the middle of the 12th century, under the leadership of a talented strategist called Taira no Kiyomori (1118-1181), the Heike overwhelmed the Genji and seized political power for themselves. Aristocrats in the past had controlled power by marrying their daughters to emperors, and Kiyomori did the same thing and he and his clan enjoyed the luxurious fruits of their success. However, Kiyomori’s tyranny inspired the resentment of those at court, including the imperial family. After Kiyomori died from a violent fever (which people at the time read as divine punishment for his arrogance), the Genji rallied and seized back power. Kiyomori who was normally utterly scrupulous in his plans had made the miscalculation of allowing Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147-1199), the heir to the Genji clan, to survive. Yoritomo took up arms against the Heike, and without their great strategist the Heike lost battle after battle before fi nally being entirely destroyed. The tale can also be read as a war between the power of western Japan (including the capital at the time, Kyoto) and a new power which arose in eastern Japan (which includes contemporary Tokyo, though the city did not yet exist). The Heike were the leaders of the western warriors, and they were fi nally defeated at a naval battle which took place on the narrow straits (Dannoura) at the far western edge of Honshū. During that battle the leading Heike generals and the young emperor Antoku (1178-85, whose father had been forced by Kiyomori to renounce the throne) threw themselves into the sea and ——————————————————————————————— 1 There are several full and partial English translations of The Tale of the Heike. The most recent is Tyler (2012). There is also an English translation of the The Taiheiki (McCullough 1959). 2 Translated into English in Jones (1993).

– 4 – Notes on “Yoshitsune & The Thousand Cherry Trees: A Reading” drowned. Yoritomo was the leader of the eastern warriors, and he and the victorious eastern warriors were subsequently able to supplant the Emperor and the aristocrats and establish the fi rst independent warrior government in eastern Japan. One of the heroes on the Genji side in the war was Yoritomo’s much younger brother, Yoshitsune (1159-89), and it is from him that the play takes its title. However, the interest of The Tale of the Heike lies in the process that takes the Heike warriors from their brief moment of glory and their high refi nement, not just as warriors but as aristocrats too, towards unavoidable destruction. Behind this movement lies the concept of impermanence (mujō): the idea that nothing is permanent, that fate cannot be resisted, and that we should feel compassion towards its vic- tims. We can see a similar theme in a later orally transmitted text that deals with the life of the hero Yoshitsune, the Gikeiki (The Tale of Yoshitsune).3 Yoshitsune’s martial exploits incur the jealousy of his brother Yoritomo. Due to his political naivety, he is made use of by the imperial family (in particular the retired emperor Goshirakawa (1127-92), the grandfather of the young emperor who drowned at Dannoura) who wish to seize power back from the warriors, and Yoritomo has him declared a traitor and expelled from the clan. Yoshitsune and a handful of his retainers are forced to fl ee northwards in search of sanctuary, but in the end they are destroyed. Once again the theme of mujō is brought to the fore, as a once powerful fi gure is brought low. Setting aside the literary value of The Tale of the Heike and The Tale of Yoshitsune (the former is far more refi ned), what both texts share is the Japanese sentiment that sympathy should lie not with the victor, but with those who fall from a position of power. If these texts can be said to contain a universality, it is found here, in this quality similar to what Aristotle described as tragedy.

The Creation and Plot of Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees

The bunraku play Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees is based on The Tale of the Heike and The Tale of Yoshitsune, and was fi rst performed in 1747 at the Takemoto-za theatre in Osaka. It was jointly authored by Takeda Izumo II (1691-1756), Miyoshi Shōraku (dates unknown), and Namiki Sōsuke (1695-1751). Identifying which playwright was responsible for which scenes has proved diffi cult, but we are almost certain that Namiki Sōsuke acted as the lead playwright. The play has remained in continuous performance in the repertoire, and as with other puppet theatre masterpieces it has been adapted for kabuki. It follows the conventions of bunraku playwriting in that it is written in fi ve dan. Since a full performance of the play would take over nine hours, these dan are perhaps better understood as ‘parts’ rather than Western acts. The plot of the fi rst dan contains one major deviation from The Tale of the Heike: it suggests that Yoshitsune did not actually kill the main Heike generals. The heads he sent for inspection to his brother Yoritomo (a warrior convention in this period) were fakes. He is ordered to complete the task. Yoshitsune had his own reasons for sparing the generals but Yoritomo is unyielding, and there is also an imperial plot to sow discord between the two brothers. In the second dan, Yoshitsune has become a fugitive and with a handful of his retainers tries to escape by ship across the western sea. Some commoners are helping him acquire passage, but in a dramatic coup de théâtre they are revealed to be one of the leading Heike generals (Tomomori), the young emperor Antoku, and their supporters. A battle occurs again between Yoshitsune and the Heike forces,

——————————————————————————————— 3 Translated into English in McCullough (1966).

– 5 – English Journal of JSTR but in the end the Heike are defeated. The third dan includes the most famous scene in the play, the Sushiya scene, and is often performed as a stand-alone play. The dan depicts the events that happen to another powerful Heike general, Koremori, his wife Naishi, and their child Rokudai following the defeat of the Heike. Koremori manages to elude his pursuers and he is sheltered by Yazaemon, the owner of a sushi shop. This, of course, is an anachronism, as the commercial culture necessary for a sushi shop did not exist at the time of The Tale of the Heike. It is rather a refl ection of the society of the 18th century, when the play was written. The scene reveals that Yazaemon is sheltering Koremori and his family because he once embezzled a dona- tion that Koremori’s father Shigemori had sent to a temple, but his life was spared. Shigemori is depicted as the most virtuous of the Heike – he was Kiyomori’s eldest son and was meant to lead the clan, but he died young. Yoritomo has despatched a loyal general called Kajiwara to lead the forces in search of the Heike generals. As they close in on Koremori and his family, Yazaemon uses the head of a retainer who had died while fl eeing, and tries to deceive Kajiwara that it is the head of Koremori. Just then, Yazaemon’s son Gonta presents Kajiwara with a tub containing what he says is the head of the real Koremori. Up until this point in the play Gonta has been depicted as the kind of scoundrel who would very easily do something like this for money. After Kajiwara leaves, the enraged Yazaemon stabs Gonta with a sword. The dying Gonta reveals that Yazaemon’s wife had rashly switched the tubs, the one that Gonta gave to Kajiwara was the one that contained the head, and that Koremori is still alive. It is revealed that Yazaemon acted too quickly in attacking his son, and that Gonta has in fact reformed and sworn loyalty to Koremori. To add to the tragedy, Gonta received a haori from Kajiwara as a reward and inside its lining is a message from Yoritomo, revealing that he had never forgotten how Shigemori had spared his life and suggesting that he had always intended to spare Koremori. In eff ect, Koremori was never in any danger and the sacrifi ces by Yazaemon and his son were meaningless. Learning all this, Koremori feels the emptiness of human actions and decides to become a priest. In the fourth dan, the plot returns to the fugitive Yoshitsune and his retainers. The famous scenes in this act revolve around Tadanobu, one of those loyal retainers. In an earlier scene in act two, Yoshitsune entrusted his lover Shizuka to Tadanobu, believing that she would be in hindrance on the road. But when Yoshitsune meets Tadanobu again, Shizuka is not with him and Yoshitsune is angry. It turns out that there are two Tadanobu’s and that Shizuka is together with the second one, and furthermore that the second Tadanobu is in fact a fox in disguise. The reason why he was so attached to Shizuka was because the drum she carried with her was made with the skin from his fox parents. Yoshitsune also grew up alone and out of admiration for Tadanobu’s devotion to his parents, he gives the drum to him. Tadanobu then alerts Yoshitsune to the approach of enemy forces. The fi nal dan, following jōruri playwriting convention, is very concise. With the help of the fox’s magical powers, Yoshitsune and his retainers are able to defeat the fi nal Heike general, thus dispelling Yoritomo’s suspicions and leading to a happy ending.

The Dramaturgy of Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees

The section above provides a minimal outline of the plot to aid in the understanding of Uchiyama’s argument, but the play itself contains multiple other plot lines. This multiplicity of plot presents the most acute diﬀ erence with the Western dramaturgical assumption that the play should move from a beginning

– 6 – Notes on “Yoshitsune & The Thousand Cherry Trees: A Reading” towards a conclusion under some conditions of unity. I wonder if it is even possible for those ideals of dramatic unity to exist in a massive work like Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees, created by multiple authors and requiring a full day in performance. At fi rst reading, the play seems like a collection of miscellaneous stories that have a diff erent theme in each dan. Even in terms of characters, Yoshitsune plays a central role in some dan, but in others he does not appear at all. In this epic play he functions as an embodiment of mujō, and as a thread that loosely knits together the plot across its multiple dan. As I state in the conclusion to this essay, we should not read Yoshitsune as the hero of the play. Instead, if we examine the fi ve thematic elements required in bunraku plays – love, battles (shura), pathos, michiyuki travel song (including a danced element), and conclusion - we will see that that they have been skillfully divided between the acts. In which case, we could argue that there is a unity in the division of those thematic elements, rather than a unity of plot. In terms of the construction of the plot, the fate of the various characters generally extends and is gradually developed across multiple dan. For example, the subplot about the drum that Yoshitsune receives from an attendant to the Emperor in the fi rst dan is not resolved until the fourth dan. The way in which the diff erent plotlines are skilfully extended and developed across multiple dan creates a phased, cascade structure to the work as a whole. Uchiyama’s essay makes this point in a very condensed fashion, but the fundamental structural device of the play is created by overlapping the situations of Yoshitsune and his retainers, reduced in circumstances due to the confl ict with his brother Yoritomo, with the situations of the Heike clan who were thought to have been destroyed, but in fact still survive. The play then resolves their fates in a phased structure. Or, in Uchiyama’s words, “In each of its acts, the play uses a type of analytical structure in order to reveal the mysterious workings of karma that connects the past to the present.” To put it another way, the actions of characters in the present are infl uenced by the actions of characters from the past, but the audience are kept in the dark as to why this should be. The answer is revealed in a phased way over the course of the play. For example, Tomomori’s defeat in the second dan is explained by the fact that his father Kiyomori placed an unqualifi ed female child on the imperial throne. In the third dan, the structure is designed to reveal to the audience that Koremori is saved in recompense for his father Shigemori’s virtuous actions in the past. A footnote in Uchiyama’s essay references Hara Michio’s “’Jitsu wa’ no sakugekihō”, an article that examines the play’s dramaturgy from a diff erent angle and argues that there was a common structure to its dan. Hara argues that the play was constructed from the premise that the powerful Heike generals Tomomori, Koremori and Noritsune had ‘in fact’ (jitsu wa) survived the war. Thus, in the second dan, the shipping agent Ginpei who arranges transport for Yoshitsune’s party is in fact the daring Taira no Tomomori, his daughter Oyasu is Emperor Antoku, and his wife is the emperor’s wet nurse Tsubone, creating a dramatic coup de théâtre in the scene. As we have already seen, in the Sushiya scene in the third dan, Yazaemon’s apprentice Yasuke is in fact Taira no Koremori. In the fourth dan, it is revealed that the priest dressed in armour who attacks Yoshitsune is in fact Taira no Noritsune. There are similar revelations in the play: Yazaemon’s dissolute son Gonta is revealed to be loyal and sincere; Yoshitsune’s loyal retainer Tadanobu is revealed to be a fox in disguise. This dramatic technique emphasizes the distance between temporary and true forms, and reveals the tragic nature behind the circumstances in which the characters fi nd themselves. This kind of fantasy, in which characters who appear to be nothing but 18th century commoners are revealed in fact to be some famous fi gure from history, was a very common dramatic device in bunraku and kabuki. So common is it that we could even say that it is a characteristic of Japanese classical the-

– 7 – English Journal of JSTR atre. Namiki Sōsuke, who played a central role in the play’s composition, made eff ective use of this device in the play. He was also chief playwright (tate sakusha) for the other two bunraku masterpieces from this period, Kanadehon chūshingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers) and Sugawara denju tena- rai kagami (Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy).4 Building on Hara’s conclusions, Uchiyama argues that the scenes that are most strongly believed to be by Namiki Sōsuke, i.e. fi nal scene of the second dan and the third dan, refl ect his own unique understanding of history. This understanding is woven not just into the structure of the play, but is also present in its intertexuality, in the way the bunraku text refers to other texts. The signifi cance of Uchiyama’s essay is located here, in the way she uses close textual reading and examinations of performance to make her argument.

“A World That Might Have Been”

The climactic scenes of the second dan (the Tokaiya and Daimotsu no ura scenes) are based upon the noh play Funa Benkei (Benkei Aboard Ship).5 The Tale of the Heike provided the source material for many noh plays. While the expressive strategies of noh and bunraku are very diff erent, the scenes were Yoshitsune’s and his retainers try to escape by boat and where the ghost of Taira no Tomomori appears are identical to Benkei Aboard Ship. Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees also borrows from another noh play called Ikari kazuki (The Anchor Draping) in this scene.6 In Uchiyama’s reading of this scene, the use of lines from the noh text in this scene function fi rst as a parody of noh. “The badly wounded Tomomori still repeats the lines spoken by the ghost in the noh play Funa Benkei: ‘Aha! A marvel indeed! What say you, Yoshitsune? I had not imagined the thundering waves..’”. Yoshitsune admonishes him, telling him to stop playacting as a ghost. Furthermore, she shows that the archaic phrasing of the text for the narration transforms the sea battle between the Heike and the Genji (Yoshitsune) in this scene into a conceptual one. The audience is told of the progress of the battle, but the playwrights have no interest in representing it on stage. But at the same time, the battle between Tomomori and Yoshitsune is, to borrow a phrase about the J.B. Priestley play, “a world that might have been” (Cooper 1970: 12) . There is a dualism here between Ginpei and Tomomori, between the commercial energy of 18th century Osaka shipping agents and the general who refused to go down without a fi ght in The Tale of the Heike. It is by way of this perhaps unconscious dualism that Tomomori attempts to rewrite the historical mistake that saw the extermination of the Heike. In this way, history is repeated on the stage. The history that Tomomori enacts is one in which he makes his own choices but which still follows the same arc as the offi cial, written history and ends up with the Heike being defeated by Yoshitsune. Tomomori then realizes that the history he was attempting to create was wrong, and taking a form that suggests the ghost from the noh play, he vanishes from the stage. He appeared fi rst as a ghost, is given the chance to relive his fate, and then is reabsorbed back into offi cial history (seishi). This process is demonstrated in the bunraku text by a return to a literary style which mirrors that of The Tale of the Heike. In other words, in the play the use of quotations or imita- tions of older literary styles in the narration indicates the frame of history (epic). This is contrasted to and co-exists with a second style of narration which indicates dramatic events which happen in the here ——————————————————————————————— 4 The former has been translated into English in Keene (1971), the latter in Jones (1985). 5 Translated in Tyler (1992). 6 Translated by J. Philip Gabriel in Brazell (1988).

– 8 – Notes on “Yoshitsune & The Thousand Cherry Trees: A Reading” and now. As a result, the audience is made aware of the diff erence between these two levels of language, and it able to watch Tomomori’s actions with a detachment similar to Brecht’s alienation eff ect. To put it another way, through its use of quotation from The Tale of the Heike and noh (or imitation of their styles), the play provides audiences with a frame of reference for correct, offi cial history. In the second dan, the play creates a complex contrast between its epic sections (chanted history) and its dramatic sections (performed history), and the jitsu wa revelations function as a pathway to link these two worlds together. It is here that we can see, “the skill and freshness with which the lightly stained screen doors of a shipping offi ce are transformed into the time and space of a second-category shura nō play” (Uchiyama 1989: 378). At the same time, Uchiyama shows just why the second dan, where secret history converges with offi cial history, could only have been performed as bunraku. As I already noted, many of the outstanding bunraku plays have been adapted for performance on the kabuki stage. But we are rarely aware of the fundamental diff erences that exist between the two theatres. Here, Uchiyama’s makes a telling observa- tion – when drama (confl ict between living individuals) fades into the background and epic (the telling of the past) comes to the foreground, this movement through time can be best expressed not by actors with their living bodies, but by puppet with their lack of individuality.

The Return of History (the epic)

The third dan depicts the cruelty of history and the tragedy and comedy of human lives when they inter- sect with it. As Uchiyama points out, the hero of this dan is neither Koremori, nor Gonta who dies a tragic death, nor his father Yazaemon. Rather, it is the virtuous Shigemori who never once appears on the stage. Koremori is certainly one of the main characters in the dan, but Uchiyama states, “so closely does Koremori’s character in cleave to the image of his father that he never once possesses an independent existence.” (Uchiyama 1989: 371). Later she writes, We can see the logic of contemporary bunraku performance practice. For example, the phrase, “the days of glories past and of my father”, which dramatically is nothing out of the ordinary, has always been emphasized as a supremely diffi cult one by performers. This can only be because the performers have recognized the importance of Shigemori to this scene. (Uchiyama 1989: 377) When he was still alive, it was Shigemori’s compassion towards Yazaemon that defi ned Yazaemon as a man of loyalty and which eventually leads to the death of his son Gonta. In the same way, Shigemori once saved the life of Yoritomo, his clan’s mortal enemy, and because of this Yoritomo decides to spare Koremori’s life. There is a strong element of Buddhist cause and eff ect (inga ōhō) here, but at the same time there is the sense that contemporary individuals are being controlled by the unalterable events of history. The dan draws a contrast with characters who are forced to take action in the present. Uchiyama agrees that the drama in the third dan revolves around Gonta’s attempt to save Koremori which leads to his pointless death. However, she points out that the play does not provide suffi cient explanation of his psychology for him to be played tragically. Given that the audience cannot follow the shifts in his morality, it is wrong to try to read his actions in a contemporary way. While Gonta has his loveable side, she argues, there are also elements of his actions that the audience view as irrational (for example, capturing the wife and child of Koremori and handing them over to their enemies, when there was no need to do so). She makes the forthright point that while the play emphasizes his loyalty, in fact

– 9 – English Journal of JSTR his death is pointless. The playwrights work hard to construct the drama in this dan to ensure that the audience never feels fully on Gonta’s side, creating another Brechtian alienation eff ect. In a similar way to the second dan, the third dan also juxtaposes the quotidian reality of 18th century commoners with the great history of the past (unreality), creating a type of irony. As Uchiyama writes, The puppet of the little old woman (Yazaemon’s wife) clings to the big sushi tub, refusing to let go. At a moment that will determine the historical and political struggle between the Genji and the Heike, between Yoritomo and Koremori, all she can think about is the three kanme of silver that she scraped and saved. (Uchiyama 1989: 379) In another episode, all we can do is laugh bitterly when the Genji general Kajiwara is “presented with a clearly rustic wife with white powder discoloration on her face and he is told that this is Wakaba no Naishi, the wife of Koremori and a woman who once served at the Emperor’s side”. (Uchiyama 1989: 379) By the end of the dan, Uchiyama argues that the contemporary world of the stage is replaced by the historical past, At this moment, the contemporary-life Sushiya scene begins to fade away from the audience, leaving them with a chill in their spines as it slips back into the past to become part of a picture scroll (emaki) about the Heiji and Hōgen rebellions. Characters like Gonta, Osato and Yazaemon, with whom they had felt so intimate, are transformed into nameless bit part players in an old tale from an entirely diff erent age. When the curtain is fi nally pulled closed on the scene, it is as if the Sushiya characters have been stripped of their individuality. (Uchiyama 1989: 377). Finally, Uchiyama chooses to avoid analyzing the fourth dan in as much detail, since it was written by the other two Takemoto-za playwrights and not by Namiki Sōsuke. But even here, she argues that, “the structure of the fourth act is rich with romance, humanity, and a sense of freedom, creating the play’s highpoint in terms of stage performance” (Uchiyama 1989: 381). If we amplify that idea, there is much in the fourth dan’s valorization of the love between parents and children and in its folkloristic elements that can remind us of romances like Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale.

Bunraku as “epic theatre”

The ways in which ordinary people became the heroes of tragedy in post-18th century Western theatre has long been a topic for research. In addition, ultimately it took until the appearance of Brecht to develop a dramaturgy that would permit them to be placed into the larger historical frame. In her essay, Uchiyama makes clear that Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees juxtaposes texts that suggest quotation (history) with texts that are performed by the chanters (drama). Techniques reminiscent of Brecht’s alienation eﬀ ect are used: we are not encouraged to analyse the characters psychologically, their actions are shown at a distance, and we are prevented from identifying with them. These distancing techniques are not limited to this play. Through the use of jitsu wa technique, for example, an intimate relationship is set up between quotidian reality (the small story of the lives of commoners) and unreality (the larger story of history). We could also describe this as a contrapuntal use of epic and drama.

Acknowledgement: I express my deep gratitude to Alan Cummings, scholar of Japanese theater at SOAS University of London, for his generous cooperation and without whose devotion and expertise the diﬃ cult work of

– 10 – Notes on “Yoshitsune & The Thousand Cherry Trees: A Reading” translating Dr. Uchiyama’s article could not have been realized.

References Brazell, Karen (ed.) (1988). Twelve Plays of the Noh and Kyōgen Theaters, Ithaca, Cornell University East Asia Papers No.50. Cooper, Susan (1970). J. B. Priestley: Portrait of an Author, London, Harper & Row Publishers. Hara, Michio. (1978a). “‘Jitsu wa’ no sakugekihō – Yoshitsune senbon zakura no baai” [The Dramaturgy of ‘Jitsu wa’ – In Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees] Part 1, Bungaku, August. Hara, Michio. (1978b). “‘Jitsu wa’ no sakugekihō – Yoshitsune senbon zakura no baai” [The Dramaturgy of ‘Jitsu wa’ – In Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees] Part 2, Bungaku, October. Jones, Stanleigh H. (trans.) (1985). Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy, New York, Columbia University Press. Jones, Stanleigh H. (trans.) (1993). Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees, New York, Columbia University Press. Keene, Donald (trans.) (1971). Chūshingura, the Treasury of Loyal Retainers: a Puppet Play, New York, Columbia University Press. McCullough, Helen Craig (trans.) (1959). The Taiheiki: A Chronicle of Medieval Japan, New York, Columbia University Press. McCullough, Helen Craig (trans.) (1966). Yoshitsune: A Fifteenth-Century Japanese Chronicle, Stanford, Stanford University Press. Torigoe, Bunzō, and Watanabe, Tamotsu (eds.) (1997-98). Iwanami kōza kabuki / bunraku [Iwanami Courses: Kabuki / Bunraku], Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Tyler, Royall. (1992). Japanese Nō Dramas, London, Penguin. Tyler, Royall (trans.). (2012) The Tale of the Heike, London, Viking. Uchiyama, Mikiko. (1989). Jōrurishi no Jūhasseiki [A Jōruri History of the 18th Century], Tokyo, Benseisha. Uchiyama, Mikiko, and Sakurai, Hiroshi (eds.) (2004). Jōruri shirōto kōshaku [Amateur Lectures on Jōruri], Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Uchiyama, Mikiko. (2010). Bunraku nijuseiki kōki no kagayaki – gekihyō to bunrakukō [Bunraku: The Glory of Late 20th Century Bunraku – Theatre Reviews and Essays], Tokyo, Waseda Daigaku Shuppanbu, 2010.

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