Changes in ‘Shunkan’ Figures

――The Tale of the Heike, Noh, Ningyo-joruri, Kabuki, and KURATA Momozo's Shunkan――

Abstract

A man of religion, Shunkan, is a historical figure, who was exiled to Iwojima on a charge of conspiracy against the military rulers, the Heike. The story is related in the great epic about the vicissitude of the Heike family in the 12th century, The Tale of the Heike. Shunkan's story was dramatized as a noh play, Shunkan. This noh play was employed as the basic material for a scene in a ningyo-joruri (puppet theatre) play, Heike-nyogo-no-shima, written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon in 1719, which in turn was transformed into a kabuki play the following year. Kurata Momozo wrote his Shunkan in 1919, not after any of the preceding plays, but after the epic, The Tale of the Heike.

In short, the theme of the epic Shunkan is the powers of religion and political connections, while the noh play expresses a deep despair of a lonely man in exile. Chikamatsu's Shunkan is bound by the love of family, and the kabuki play presents a visually dramatic figure of the head of a family, Shunkan, as hero. Kurata's writing draws upon his own agoines as a modern man, particularly in relation to making of ego, betrayal, jealousy, etc. Yet, the narrative aspect remains in all these works, and the examination of changes of Shunkan through the ages may suggest a new dramaturgy for the future drama.