Paper short abstract:

This presentation addresses the way motifs of movement and stasis are used in the noh Ohara gokō, a play explicitly addressing the losses caused by the Genpei War. I consider the stasis of the main character as she narrates movement through charged spaces (the capital, Dan-no-ura, and Jakkoin).

Paper long abstract:

Ohara gokō is a masterpiece of the noh repertoire, esteemed for the lyricism of its text and the relative stillness with which that text is staged. Based on the “Initiates’ Scroll” (Kanjō no maki 灌頂巻), of the Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari 平家物語), Ohara gokō enacts a visit between Go-Shirakawa, the retired emperor, and Kenreimon’in, widow of his son (Emperor Takakura) and the now-tonsured bereft survivor of the Heike clan recently defeated in the Genpei War. The visit elicits from Kenreimon’in a recollection her clan’s fate (and her life’s journey) in terms of transmigration through the Six Realms of Buddhist existence.

Ohara gokō is noted for its quietude. Although most noh end with a final dance, it has none, as that would be beneath the dignity of the main character, a tonsured former empress. The center of the play is her retelling of her life, which reenacts it in only the most cerebral sense, but nevertheless nods to the form of a mugen (ghost) noh. The stillness of the piece moreover embraces a variety of imagined movement which takes the audience from Kenreimon’in’s retreat at Jakkōin to the capital, to the extremities of the realm, and through the Six Realms.

This presentation addresses the complexity of this play which both adheres to and shifts genre expectations in its treatment of movement and memory. I focus specifically on the staging of the play, including stage directions and the use of set pieces and props. I give special attention to Kenreimon’in’s act of reordering the troubled past, including her clan’s expulsion from the capital and destruction at the edge of the realm. What is the role played by invisible and imaginary spaces, and movement from, to, and through them, in a play focused on loss and focalized through the grieving former empress ensconced in her retreat? To what degree does this recasting of the experience of the Genpei War – one framed in the Tale of the Heike as exile – as Buddhist pilgrimage restore order and contain both aching personal loss and significant political upheaval?