The Play’s the Thing

Takako Shimura’s use of Yukio Mishima’s 1956 play Rokumeikan in volume 3 of Sweet Blue Flowers is probably the best example of her fondness for using theatrical plays as elements in her manga. The interplay between the events and characters of the play and the events and characters of the manga contributes to that volume being, to my mind, the best of the series.

The bits of the play presented in Sweet Blue Flowers are somewhat fragmentary. Shimura assumes a readership familiar with at least the basic outline of the play and its main characters. For those who have not read the play, here‘s a summary of the plot:

Act 1. On the emperor’s birthday, November 3, 1886, a group of aristocratic women gather at a teahouse on the estate of Count Hisatoshi Kageyama, a high-ranking government minister, and watch the military review being held in the emperor’s honor. (This first scene is also the first depicted in the manga (SBF, 2:233–35).) Kageyama’s wife Asako (played by Kyoko Ikumi in the performance shown in Sweet Blue Flowers) joins them. Asako, an ex-geisha elevated to the aristocracy by her marriage, is uncomfortable with her new status and never appears in public.¹

One of the women appeals to Asako on behalf of her daughter Akiko (played by Akira Okudaira in Sweet Blue Flowers) and Akiko’s lover Hisao. Hisao supports the opposition party, and Akiko fears that he will disrupt that night’s ball at the Rokumeikan and attempt to assassinate Count Kageyama. Perturbed at hearing Hisao’s name, Asako agrees to help, and after the ladies depart, she meets with him.²

Asako reveals to Hisao that she is his mother by her former lover Einosuke Kiyohara, leader of the opposition party, who took Hisao in after his birth. Hisao expresses his resentment of his father’s neglect of him and his treatment compared to Kiyohara’s legitimate children and reveals that he plans to kill not Kageyama but Kiyohara.³

Act 2. After Hisao leaves, Asako reaches out to Kiyohara (played by Ryoko Ueda in Sweet Blue Flowers) and meets him at the teahouse. She tells him she knows about the plan to disrupt the ball and urges him to abandon it. Kiyohara resists until she tells him that she plans to leave her private sphere and attend the ball herself.⁴

Kiyohara leaves as Count Kageyama and his retainer Tobita enter the scene. Overheard by Asako, their conversation reveals that Kageyama knows about the plot to disrupt the ball and, with Tobita as his intermediary, is the mastermind behind Hisao’s plan to kill Kiyohara. The bloodthirsty Tobita protests that Kageyama did not give him the task of assassination.⁵

Asako reveals herself and tells Kageyama that there will be no disturbance at the ball, and after Tobita leaves, tells Kageyama of her plan to attend. She then urges Kageyama to persuade Hisao to abandon his plan to kill his father, explaining her interest as simply that of helping a friend’s daughter. Kageyama agrees on the condition that the ball not be disrupted. After Asako leaves, he grabs her maid Kusano and forces himself upon her.⁶

Act 3. Upstairs at the Rokumeikan before the ball, Akiko and Hisao talk of Asako’s role in bringing Hisao to the ball. They kiss, after which Asako enters and busies herself with directing the workers decorating the rooms. Meanwhile, having seduced Kusano with the promise of his favor, Kageyama extracts from her the information that Asako is Hisao’s mother and Kiyohara’s former lover.⁷

After conversing briefly with Asako, Kageyama seeks out Tobita and tells him that plans have changed: since Kiyohara called off the original plot to disrupt the ball, Tobita should now arrange a disruption himself. Kageyama then tells Kusano to summon Kiyohara to the Rokumeikan that evening in Asako’s name.⁸

Akiko and Hisao talk of their plans to elope together and leave for a foreign tour. Kageyama interrupts them and upbraids Hisao for his giving in to romance and abandoning his plans. He tells Hisao that (contrary to what Asako told Hisao) a break-in will occur, and the (unnamed) target of Hisao’s assassination plot will be present on the grounds outside the Rokumeikan. Kageyama hands Hisao a pistol, and he accepts it.⁹

Kageyama rejoins Asako and her friends, and they drink a toast to the emperor’s health—marred by the ill omen of Asako accidentally dropping her glass.¹⁰

Act 4. As Asako, Kageyama, and their fellow aristocrats talk among themselves, the invited dignitaries begin to arrive at the ball. These include Prime Minister Hirobumi Itō, Minister of the Army Iwao Ōyama and his wife, the former Sutematsu Yamakawa (see the previous chapter), and various foreign guests.¹¹

After the guests enter the ballroom, a report comes up from downstairs of men brandishing swords and destroying decorations. Asako goes to the head of the stairs and faces them down, after which Kageyama quietly directs Tobita to have the men withdraw. Meanwhile, thinking that his father has betrayed both him and Asako in ordering the plot to proceed, Hisao flies into a rage and leaves the building.¹²

Soon after, shots are heard, and a distraught Kiyohara enters, explaining that Hisao is dead: Kiyohara was fired upon by an assailant hiding in the dark and fired back in self-defense, subsequently discovering that he had killed his son. Perceiving that Hisao had deliberately misdirected his shot, Kiyohara concludes that Hisao wanted to be killed by his father as an act of revenge upon him.¹³

Kiyohara declares himself done with politics and sardonically congratulates Kageyama on achieving his goal of eliminating a political enemy. He also tells Asako that the men who broke into the Rokumeikan were not his own, declares that he kept his promise (implying that in calling him to the scene, Asako had not kept hers), swears that he will never see her again, and exits.¹⁴

Tobita exits as well (“with a conspiratorial air,” per the stage directions), as do Akiko and her mother after Asako attempts to comfort them, leaving Asako and Kageyama to face each other. Kageyama taunts Asako for believing in “fairy tales” of trust and cooperation between people, in ignorance of the real world of politics, while Asako accuses him of knowing and wanting nothing but power.¹⁵

Asako declares her intention to leave Kageyama for Kiyohara, the arrival of the Imperial Princess is announced, the orchestra plays while Asako and Kageyama dance, and Asako thinks she hears a pistol shot in the distance. The music stops, Kageyama tells Asako the sound was only fireworks, and then the music and dance continue as the curtain falls.¹⁶