KERRIA JAPONICA
IZUMI KYĹKA
TRANSLATED BY M. CODY POULTON
Izumi KyĹka, Kerria Japonica, directed by Nakamura Takao, Parco Part 3, September 1992.
Known for his rich and poetic prose style, Izumi KyĹka (1873â1939) wrote romances and fantasies that challenged the work of his contemporaries and that, with the rise of naturalism as a literary movement, tended to be simpler, more direct and realistic, and even autobiographical. KyĹkaâs inspiration came from predominantly traditional sourcesâfolklore, nĹ and kabuki theater, the illustrated fiction of the Edo eraâbut his literature already anticipated the decadent turn in Japanese culture in the TaishĹ era. He attracted an avid following of younger writers like Tanizaki JunâichirĹ and Kawabata Yasunari, and, even later, Mishima Yukio, Kara JĹŤrĹ, and Terayama ShĹŤji. In fact, from as early as the mid-1890s, the shinpa theater adapted many of KyĹkaâs novels to the stage. (See his Nihonbashi and a discussion of shinpa theater in part VI.) Primarily a novelist, as were many of his contemporaries, KyĹka also wrote many plays, mostly during the TaishĹ era. Many of these original works, like Demon Pond (Yasha ga ike) and The Castle Tower (Tenshu monogatari), are unbridled fantasies with supernatural characters and elements drawn from ghost stories and legends. Although most of them were never performed in his lifetime, thanks to revivals since the 1960s by the kabuki actor BandĹ TamasaburĹ V and various avant-garde stage artists like Ninagawa Yukio and Miyagi Satoshi, these plays have become the favorites of KyĹkaâs works and are, in many respects, more accessible to a modern Japanese public than his fiction, which is difficult to read.
Kerria Japonica (Yamabuki, 1923) is an exception to much of KyĹkaâs original work for the stage, in that all the characters are human, yet the play displays touches of the grotesque and decadent that can be found in his wildest fantasies. A favorite of Mishima Yukio, who said of it that all the people it portrays are in fact monsters, the play is a study of obsessive love. It was first staged in 1978.
How like a lovely woman fresh from her bath (her dark eyebrows, faint mountain crescents) are the white blooms of the kerria rose, strikingly pale against their deep green leaves damp with rain!
Time: The present. A morning in late April.
Place: A back alley in Shuzenji hot spring. Later, also in Shuzenji, a shortcut in the woods to the road to Shimoda.
Characters
An ARTIST, Shimazu Tadashi, forty-five or forty-six years old
A LADY, Nuiko, Viscountess Koitogawa, formerly the daughter of the proprietor of the restaurant Yukari, age twenty-five
A traveling PUPPETEER, Heguri TĹji, age sixty-nine
A YOUNG BOY and GIRL, festival pages. A SHOPKEEPER of a general store. A GROOM. Fourteen or fifteen VILLAGERS
SCENE 1
A general store. On one side are three double-petaled cherry trees in full bloom. Inside the closed glass doors of the store are a variety of products for sale: cotton batting, paper, bolts of cloth, dried shiitake mushrooms, patent medicines, soft drinks, and the like. In the earthen entrance, with its door open, are some chairs and a table laid with beer, juice, a keg of sakĂŠ covered in straw matting, and a bottle of shĹchĹŤ. Right beside the store is a rice paddy.
To the other side of the store is a hedge of cedar over a low stone wall, beneath which flows a small stream. Saffron flowers and weeds grow in the wall. Behind the hedge is a willow in fresh green leaf, its branches drooping over the path. A purple magnolia in blossom would also look good in the background. There is a path between the store and the hedge. The rice paddy, which has not yet been tilled, is covered with green waterweeds. Here and there bloom milk vetch and mustard blossoms. Following the path along the hedge, farther on is a bamboo grove and a tall zelkova tree, in whose shadows the path disappears up the mountain.
The PUPPETEER is seated, his back to the audience, at the squalid-looking table at the earthen storefront. As he speaks, he rubs his upper lip.
PUPPETEER: MasterâKind master! Pour me another, wonât you?
SHOPKEEPER (Enters the storefront from behind the glass partition): Why, there ainât no need to be calling me âkindâ! A simple sir will do me fine. (Smiles wryly.) Donât you think the sunâs high enough yet, old man? How do you expect to make a living if you drink like that?
PUPPETEER: Hah, hah, hah. Iâve done with work for the day already. Pardon me for saying so, but once Iâm through here, Iâll just stagger off to my little nest in the woods.
SHOPKEEPER: You neednât tell me how unsteady your legs will be, but itâs a bit too early to be heading back to that nest of yours!âI have to mind the store today on me own, but this side of the bridge to the public baths donât see much traffic compared to the crush of visitors in Shuzenji. Nowâs when you ought to be making money.
PUPPETEER: Right you are. First the locals, then the pilgrims from all over the countryâaunties and grannies, grandpas with their grandkids, swarms of them, black as the smoke rising from the ritual bonfires, undaunted by cloudbursts like the monsoons of summer.âAnd then, the boom! boom! of festival drums have drowned out the tinkle-tinkle coming from the little sideshow tentsâwhy would anybody want to come way over here? Cross the bridge, and so long customers! Hah, hah!âI can ply my trade come evening and make some money, but Iâve earned enough right now for a drink or two, and I donât need no more than that.âAnd if worse comes to worst, well then, just let me die here. (Bows deeply, bumping his head hard against the glass pane.)âKind master, pour me another drink!
SHOPKEEPER: Youâre just like a dying sailor begging Davy Jones to give him water. Maybe thatâs where the expression âbottomless cupâ came fromâŚ. Drink as much as you like. Itâs my business, after all. (Wipes the neck of the bottle.)âJust donât go smashing the merchandise there, old man.
PUPPETEER: Let me die in peace. (Gulps down the drink and laps up whatâs left on the palm of his hand.) Besides, itâs the anniversary of the Saintâs death.âReverend KĹbĹ, come pick me up and take me away in your automobile with its shiny gold trim!
SHOPKEEPER: It wonât be the saint that comes and takes you away, but the town hall, and thereâll be hell to pay for that. Easy with the alcohol there. (Starts to go inside.)
PUPPETEER (Shouting): Kind master, pour me another!
SHOPKEEPER: Itâs the Feast of Saint KĹbĹ, so I wonât have my spuds turn into stones on account of you.1 ⌠I hate to be stingy, so be my guest, drink as much as you like. But are you sure you finished the last drop of the one I just gave you?
PUPPETEER: So far, I knocked back five cups. I drank to the snow ⌠and now I drink to the blossomsâŚ. Kind master, three cherries grow under your eavesâŚ. Young trees but in full bloomâŚ. There ainât another house in Shuzenji that can boast such blossoms.âAnd it costs me nothing to look at âem. The drink costs me dear, but still this is a fine sight. Damn, thatâs good!
SHOPKEEPER: Donât spout nonsense. Youâre drunk, old manâŚ.
PUPPETEER: Why, just the occasional cup or two is a libation for the cherries, to ensure they blossom better. A blessing from Saint KĹbĹ himself!
SHOPKEEPER: Cut the cheap compliments.âItâs awful how nobody passes this wayâŚ. Just two children a while back, in a procession over the mountain from Tatsuno, and nobody else since then, not even a horse and his groom.âItâs such a bore having to mind the shop.âAh, I can hear the drums!
(The drums are the kind held up on a pole by two musicians who beat them in turn on both sides. The soundâboom! baboom! boom!âcan be heard dimly in the distance.)
PUPPETEER: The pipes and flutes, men in form...