Beyond Performance: Yukio Mishima's theatre of death

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Meredith Morse for her critical insights and constructive comments that have greatly assisted the development of this essay.

Notes

¹Japanese names are written here in the English way: given name first, followed by family name. Long vowel sounds are indicated by diacritical marks, unless in common usage in Romanised form (e.g., Tokyo not Tōkyō).

²Other Japanese terms for hara-kiri include seppuku and kappuku. I use hara-kiri in this essay as it is possibly the most recognised term in English.

³The body of Japanese literature on Mishima within the last forty years is a large one. In this essay, I refer to some of the major works on Mishima in English including Nathan (1975), Stokes (1975), Yourcenar (1986), and Piven (2004).

⁴Erika Fischer-Lichte, for example, discusses the performative effects in performance art works of Hermann Nitsch, Joseph Beuys, and Marina Abramovic, highlighting the performer's pain (2003 [1997]). Herbert Blau, on the other hand, discusses the problems of applying ritual to theatre in Artaud-inspired productions in the age of simulacra (2002).

⁵While there is no clear link with Artaud in Mishima's writings, it is reasonable to assume that he was aware of Artaud because of his familiarity with modern French literature, including works of Cocteau, Radiguet, and Proust (Yourcenar 1986: 21), as well as Bataille, as Mishima had written a review on his book Eroticism.

⁶In the sense of RoseLee Goldberg's discussion on performance art practices of the twentieth century, I see Mishima's act in relation to the history of Western avant-garde movements in which poets such as Vladimir Mayakovski took their art to the ‘street’ (2001: 40-3).

⁷It was photographed by popular photographer Kishin Shinoyama.

⁸It was distributed in 1966 through Tohō/ATG.

⁹It was directed by Hideo Gosha, and produced by Fuji Television and Katsu Production Company, 1969. Hitogiri means ‘samurai assassin’.

¹⁰ Otoko no Shi (Death of man) was an unpublished volume, photographed by Kishin Shinoyama 1970. Also, Mishima organised an exhibition on his art and life at the Tōbu department store in Tokyo between 12-9 November 1970, shortly before the hara-kiri incident on the 25th.

¹¹They are Tōkoku Kitamura (1868-1894), Takeo Arishima (1878-1923), Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927), and Osamu Dazai (1909-1948), to name a few.

¹²It is known that Mishima was repulsed by Osamu Dazai, a popular writer when Mishima was young, who indulged himself in a sense of sentimentality and self-pity and committed suicide with his mistress.

¹³In fact, according to Takashi Inoue, the notes written by Mishima about Confessions of a Mask in 1949 describe the book as a will (2005: 46).

¹⁴ Hagakure is the eighteenth-century record of samurai ethics. Hagakure nyūmon means ‘Introduction to Hagakure’.

¹⁵Since 1966 – first himself alone and from 1968 with Tate no Kai members – Mishima had taken part in the SDF's physical training.

¹⁶According to Inoue, Mishima staged his coup d’état on the same day, 25 November, that he had started writing Confessions of a Mask in 1948 (2005: 45).

¹⁷Grotowski refers to the actor as ‘he’.

¹⁸Stokes speculates that Mishima had an affair with Morita and planned shinjū (double suicide) (1975: 245). Yourcenar regards this hypothesis alone is too simplistic, given the complicated scenario of the Mishima incident ([1980] 1986: 141).

¹⁹Asahi Newspaper, the front page of its evening paper, 25 November 1970.

²⁰Yomiuri Newspaper, the front page of its evening paper, 25 November 1970.

²¹ Shū kan Gendai, special issue, 12 December 1970.

²²Books on the Mishima incident continue to be produced in Japan. Masayasu Hosaka's 1980 analysis, for example, was revamped and extended for republication in 2001, and its fifth edition was printed in 2009.