The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Outreach College presents The Samurai Warrior on the Noh Stage, a traditional Japanese performance art comprising song, dance and drama on February 7, 7:30 p.m. at the UH Mānoa’s Orvis Auditorium.
Noh comes in five basic flavors: the celebration of life and song in Shinto god plays, dark Buddhistic ruminations on death featuring ghostly samurai who narrate their final moments on the battlefield, lyrical expressions of love and longing by female ghosts quoting classical court poetry, down-to-earth dramas of living people consumed by jealousy or driven mad by the loss of a loved one, and colorful spectacles portraying powerful demons.
Kiyotsune, the play presented in excerpt by Munenori and Fumiyuki Takeda, belongs to the second category of Noh, the warrior plays. Kiyotsune is the name of an actual historical figure, Taira no Kiyotsune, grandson of the great tyrant whose troops were defeated in the Gempei War of 1180–1185. Distraught to be on the losing side, Kiyotsune chose to drown himself. The play brings him back as a ghost to be momentarily reunited with his wife, who lies with him in her dream but vents her resentment at his having chosen suicide.
Written by Zeami (1363–1443), Noh’s creative genius, the play is firmly grounded in the emotional trauma of a husband and wife separated by death, much as seen in the 1990 film Ghost Kiyotsune tells of the oracle that foretold their side’s defeat, dances as he recalls the songs he played and sang before this death, then slashes at imagined enemies in the warrior’s special hell until his prayers release him and he enters the Western Paradise of Amida Buddha.
Ticket information
Tickets are available online at etickethawaii.com or by phone at (808) 956-8246. Advance sales end at midnight the day prior to the performance.
Ticket prices
- $25 general admission
- $20 military, non-UH Mānoa college student, seniors, UH Alumni Association, and UH faculty/staff.
- $10 UH Mānoa student and children under 17
