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　　　The Amagasaki Scene

Background Information

This play was first performed in 1799 as a puppet play, and adapted to Kabuki the next year. It was written based to the real incident that Akechi Mitsuhide rebelled against his lord Oda Nobunaga in 1582. This play has 13 acts, and every act shows one day of the 13 days until the day he had been killed. 'The Amagasaki Scene' is act-10, and it is the story of the 10th day.

Mitsuhide was killed by an avenging army of Hashiba Hideyoshi who was Nobunaga's favorite general. After that, Hashiba Hisayoshi changed his name to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and he is well known as that name Toyotomi.

Tokugawa Ieyaasu was one of the generals of Nobunaga the same as Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi. After Hideyoshi had died, Ieyasu started Tokugawa shogunate government. Tokugawa shogunate government forbade to perform any play which based to a real incident. Playwrights changed characters' name and its background period in order to perform their drama. This play wasn't an exception.

Main characters have another name in this play, and I show them the following.

Story
The Amagasaki Scene

When Akechi Mitsuhide rebelled against Oda Nobunaga, Mitsuhide's mother Satsuki didn't forgive it. She left from Mitsuhide's mansion to a villa in Amagasaki. Mitsuhide's wife Misato and his son Jujiro's fiancee Hatsugiku visit there.

After that, Mitsuhide's wife Misato and his son Jujiro's fiancee Hatsugiku visit there. Mitsuhide has been cornered by an avenging army of Mashiba Hisayoshi. Jujiro visits the villa in order to get a permission to join his father's battle. It is his first battle.

Jujiro knows that he must die at the battlefield. Although Jujiro decided to throw away even his life, he is worry about his fiancee Hatsugiku. He thinks that Hatsugiku had better forget him soon, and he hopes that she would marry with other man happily.

Hatsugiku has been listening to his monologue at the next room. She comes there and says that she doesn't intend to marry anyone except Jujiro. Jujiro makes her help him wearing an armor suit, and she is feeling sad deeply.

After Jujiro wore the armor suit, his mother and grandmother make him do the ceremony of exchanging a marriage sake cup with Hatsugiku. Jujiro is confused of it, because he knows that he must die. But he decides not to care of it, because he must die anyway.

His mother Misao and his grandmother Satsuki intended to have given that sake cup as farewell for Jujiro, because they also have known that Jujiro would die. After that, Jujiro goes heading to his battlefield. Three women are left crying unhappily.

Before that, a monk visited, and asked Satsuki to allow staying in the villa tonight. The monk comes there, and says that he finished preparing a bath. Satsuki says the monk to take a bath first. And they all leave from the room holding worries in mind.

Mitsuhide comes into the garden. He had seen that Mashiba Hisayoshi went into the villa. He cuts a bamboo to make a spear. Mitsuhide goes into the room silently, and stabs the paper door by the bamboo spear, because he believes that Hisayoshi is there. He gets reaction from the spear. But Mitsuhide stabbed his own mother Satsuki instead of Hisayoshi.

Then Misao and Hatsugiku comes into the room being surprised. Misao finds the murderer is her husband. Meanwhile all of them can say nothing. Then Satsuki says if Mitsuhide didn't rebel against his lord Nobunaga, he wouldn't have done such a tragedy, mother killer. Although Mitsuhide says that the revolt wasn't wrong, he seems painfully.

Jujiro comes back. Misato and Hatsugiku run to Jujiro, and they find that he got wounded seriously. Jujiro reports about the battle to his father Mitsuhide. He advises Mitsuhide to get back to his domain, because his army has continued a hard fight. Just after he said everything that he wanted to say, he has died. As soon as Jujiro died, Satsuki dies. Mitsuhide lost his mother and son at the same time. He sheds tears at last.

A battle drum sounds. Mitsuhide finds the army of Hisayoshi. Then Hisayoshi comes there from the inside of the villa, and also Sato Masakiyo comes with soldiers. The monk who stays in the villa was Hisayoshi. He disguised himself into a monk in order to wait for Mitsuhide coming there. Mitsuhide has been surrounded completely. However Hisayoshi gives Mitsuhide the opportunity to escape. They promise to meet again later at the battlefield. (2001,10,6)