/lit/ - Literature

And now I've finished this one!

Having read Five Modern No Plays not too long ago and loved it, I was definitely ready for more of Mishima's theatre. This one is a bit different from his No plays though - for one, it's much longer at three acts. It also depends less on tropes and customs, and has a historical setting vs. the modern ones in the No plays. I enjoyed the postface by Mishima at the end, where he explains his inspiration for the play and some reasoning behind his character and stage direction choices. My edition also came with very nicely placed black and white photographs of what I assume was the original staging of the play in 1965 (they don't have captions or footnotes).

For the play itself, I'm going to go ahead and say I don't know much about the Marquis de Sade. I know basic things about his life and works, but that's about it. And despite that, I greatly enjoyed this play. It has an all female cast, and as Mishima puts it, could be said to be "Sade seen through women's eyes." All of the characters are riveting, there's a good bit of sarcastic humor, the off-stage recaps are very intense (especially the trampling), and the drama and psychological aspects of all the women are extremely interesting. It was the initial curiosity of the Madame de Sade's absolute devotion to her husband, only to abandon him when he is finally released from prison, that spurred Mishima to write the play. And his characterization of her perfectly fits in with that choice.

It really was an amazing play, one I'd love to see performed. Mishima mentions his avoidance of real stage directions/effects, focusing more on the actors and their speech. A very appropriate choice imo, since so much of the play is about the characters' emotions.

And guh, I want to scan this one too. There are too many damn things I want to share.