Went to the new NahART なはーと arts center today and saw “Shurijō akewatashi” 首里城明渡し, a 1933 play by Yamazato Eikichi 山里永吉, relating the 1879 events of the Empire of Japan forcing King Shō Tai of Lūchū to turn over Sui gusuku (Shuri castle), the royal palace, and move to Tokyo. It was beautiful to get to see it performed. Beautiful costumes, beautiful sets. I had not anticipated that it would be in Uchinaaguchi – the Okinawan language – rather than Japanese. Which was wonderful for helping it feel and sound right – Though it did mean I spent most of the play trying to read along in the Japanese translation, with the little light that was coming from the stage. (No house lights.)
The play begins with two top court officials, Giwan peechin and Kamekawa ueekata, talking about the circumstances of the times – whether to lean towards Japan or to believe that China will send help… (it’s more complicated than that, but… in essence.)
The last two scenes were, I thought, particularly beautiful, and moving. In a hall at Sui gusuku, painted/lacquered lavishly in red, the top officials in their stark black court robes and young princes in stunning golden robes, argue with Japanese gov’t official Matsuda Michiyuki about what is to happen to Lūchū. Michiyuki, in Western-style formal dress, and backed up by several riflemen, reads out the imperial edict declaring Ryūkyū Domain (est a few years earlier with the unilateral declared abolition of the “kingdom”) to now be abolished, Okinawa prefecture established, and the king and several princes made Japanese aristocrats and forced to relocate to Tokyo.
This is not just part of the play. Hearing it recited out felt to me, and I presume to at least some of the Okinawan audience, as a direct reminder of what happened at that time. This is not a personal drama, merely set against the backdrop of a historical time: it is very much so a play reenacting for audiences the historical events themselves, so they might understand and feel the emotional impact of what happened. The political violence committed against Lūchū, and presented in a way that highlights the patronizing self-important attitude and unilateral action of the Meiji state. Michiyuki stands, while the Luchuans all sit, the power differential symbolized and felt in the difference in height. King Shō Tai comes out and says something to the effect of, “perhaps this is happening because I am lacking in virtue. But, whatever happens to me, Lūchū will continue.”
In the next and last scene, the officials are gathered at Naha Port along with the Chifijin (Kikoe-ogimi, the chief priestess of the kingdom) and several other priestesses, as Michiyuki declares it is time for Shō Tai and the princes to board the ship to Tokyo. I was certainly moved as he departs, and everyone who is left behind sobs and cries out, knowing this might be the last they see of him.
I would be very curious, and eager, to produce a translation of the play (it’s less than 30 pages, and in fact only about half that, since each page of the program is half Okinawan and half Japanese translation), and more than that, to try to see what I can do about placing it in context, trying to see what I can say meaningfully about the politics of the time in 1933 (the context in which Yamazato wrote it), and what might be said about why it ends how it does, why it includes and excludes the scenes that it does, why it phrases things in a particular way.
What might Okinawan audiences have thought of it at that time (maybe I can even find reviews!) and what might be said about the choice to perform it again today – in 2022, 150th anniversary of the kingdom being made a Domain, and 50th anniversary of Okinawa’s post-Occupation Reversion to Japan, but not the 150th anniversary of the 1879 events of the play. And, performed right now (late Oct 2022) to coincide with Uchinanchu Taikai (a major event in which thousands of people of Okinawan descent come to Okinawa once every 5-6 years as a sort of diaspora reunion) and with the Kobikishiki 木曳式 for Sui gusuku – the Main Hall of the palace is not by any means done being rebuilt yet, but this week marks a formal ground-breaking ceremony (kikôshiki 起工式) and a ceremony presenting lumber for the reconstruction from the Yanbaru forests up north…
Yamazato is an intriguing figure himself. I don’t know much about him, but once I became aware of his name, it popped up again and again. He was not only the author of this 1933 play, which was performed a number of times down through the postwar era, including as part of a 1980-something benefit event raising funds for the rebuilding of the palace (which was destroyed in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa), but also the author of a series of newspaper opinion pieces in the late 1960s opposing Reversion to Japan, which were republished in English as a booklet entitled “Japan is Not Our Fatherland.” He also wrote a number of essays I have come across about Sui gusuku and other related topics of revival of Okinawan traditional culture and heritage.
I have to finish revising my dissertation into a book manuscript first, but, I feel like this could be really interesting to look into as a next project, dealing with contemporary heritage politics, intersecting with issues of colonialism and imperialism, how the arts relate to the complexities of Okinawan politics in the 1870s, 1930s, 1960s, 1980s…
上り口説 Nubui Kuduchi 
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