Requiem
on the Great
On
Saturday, December 18, 2004, I watched ‘Requiem on the Great Meridian’ that
was written by Junji Kinoshita at the Setagaya Public Theater. It premiered in
1979, and he received the Yomiuri Literary Award at the same year.
This play has
4-act, and is based on the Japanese classic literature, ‘The
Tale of the Heike’. All of scenes are
performed on the stage that has stairs-like equipment; the
‘The Tale of Heike’ is a history of the rise and the fall about the Taira family called Heike. Its author is unknown, but it is said that it could have written in the 13th century. The tale shows the Buddhism philosophy, all things are impermanent. A lot of stories were written about the Genji-Heike clan war, and they all were based on ‘The Tale of Heike’. ‘Requiem on the Great Meridian’ is one of them.
The
Genji clan and the Heike clan had been fighting for a long time. The Heike clan
became a ruling clan once, but the Genji clan regained its strength, after Taira-no
Kiyomori who was the master of the Heike clan died in 1181. Tomomori,
this play’s hero, was one of the sons of Kiyomori. The Heike clan was
gradually losing power. The Genji force attacked the capital city Kyo, and the
Heike clan ran away with the emperor who was 6 years old and the
three sacred treasures. The
three sacred treasures, the
Eight Hand Mirror,
the Kusanagi Sword, and the
Yasaka
Comma-Shaped-Jewel, are the symbol of the emperor.
Minamoto-no Yoshitune is the battle commander of the Genji clan, and is the younger brother of Yoritomo who is the master of the Minamoto family. He is one of the most able battle commanders in Japanese history. Just after Yoshitune attacked the Heike force at Ichinotani, this play started. Tomomori is the battle commander of the Heike clan, and is younger brother of Munemori who became the master of the Taira family after their father Kiyomori died. The birth and breeding of Tomomori and Yoshitune were similar, but their situations were different very much then.
At the beginning of the first act, Tomomori says that everything seems to be as if all must have become so, and he is confused. Although Tomomori fights strenuously as Heike's battle commander, he can’t stop feeling that he is powerless against fate. The fatalistic powerless feeling speaks the Buddhism philosophy that flows through ‘The Tale of Heike’.
Shigehira,
Tomomori’s younger brother, became a prisoner of war at the Ichinotani battle,
and the ex-emperor Goshirakawa demanded the three sacred treasures to exchange shigehira. As
Tomomori heard it, he was furious, and refused it.
At the second act, Yoshitune is in a troublesome situation because his elder brother Yoritomo doesn’t believe him, moreover a commander Kajiwara who isn’t cooperative watches him anytime. Although Benkei who is the first retainer of Yoshitsune worried about him, Yoshitune declared that he bets his life to fight against the Heike force.
At the third act, a warrior of the Heike force, Minbu said that if they lost the sea battle at Dannoura, Tomomori should go to even the foreign country with the emperor and the three sacred treasures. Of course, Tomomori doesn’t intend to lose the battle, but he is feeling the power that he can’t resist.
At
the forth act, the final sea battle of Dannoura begins in 1185.
Tomomori made a speech to his warriors as follows; don’t think that you have
the way which retreats. In
However, the Heike force lost the battle completely. Most Heike warriors were killed. Tomomori’s mother holding tightly her grandson, the emperor, jumped into the water with the three sacred treasures, and they died. Tomomori went aboard the flagship of the Heike clan. He threw warriors' dead bodies into the water from the ship. He wiped bloodstains, and swept everywhere to clean the ship. Tomomori thought that the result of the battle was obvious, and that it would be disgraceful to show the dirty ship to the Genji warriors. And Tomomori committed suicide finally. The curtain closed.
Nomura Mansai performed as Tomomori this time. He is well known as an actor of Kyogen that is a comedy of Noh, but people know him rather as an exorcist actor in the movie ‘Onmyoji / Exorcist’. I was moved Mansai’s Tomomori very much, wonderful performance. His father, Mansaku who is also a Kyogen actor was acted as Yoshitsune at the premier. A great play is inherited by the next generation certainly.
The tidal flow at Dannoura sided with the Genji force, and Yoshitune ordered to kill those who operate the Heike’s ships. It was a foul of the sea battle then. I wrote that Yoshitune was one of the most able battle commanders in Japanese history before, but it meant that he commanded unbelievable military operations at that time.
According
to ‘The Tale of Heike’, after Tomomori finished cleaning the ship, he asked
his wet nurse's son if he had remembered that they had promised to die together.
Of course he remembered it, and they both wore two suits of armor in order to
sink into the water. Tomomori said that he had seen things that he should have
seen. (There is nothing that he can do anymore.) Therefore, they had committed
suicide by jumping into the water together. Tomomori was 33 at the time.
He had been a warrior until the end. I think that Tomomori has embodied the
aesthetics of the downfall. If the situation had been different, I think that
Tomomori could have made the Heike clan better as a ruling clan. I lament his
death.
This
play opens and ends with the narrator's recitation of a poem celebrating the
celestial meridian and the power of the moon. The tidal
flow at Dannoura caused by the moon, which is separated by 384,400km
distance from the earth and has an angular velocity of 14 degrees 30
minutes per hour, settled the victory or defeat of the final battle of Genji
versus Heike. There
was fate, the power that Tomomori can’t resist to, and is called a physical
law.