This presentation discusses the way locales, both real and imaginary, are layered on the bare noh stage in the play Shunkan. An enduring piece from the medieval noh repertoire, Shunkan is based on a segment of Japan's best-known war tale, Tale of the Heike, a lyrical chronical of the Genpei War of 1180-85. Banished to the distant Kikaigashima ("Demon Island') when they are caught planning a coup d'etat, the Buddhist prelate Shunkan and two fellow exiles re-imagine the alien space at the edge of the realm in which they find themselves. In today's colloquium, Elizabeth Oyler will discuss the ways the evocation of both wholly imaginary otherworlds and actual landscapes in Shunkan reflects early noh drama's engagement with the violent past that brought the warrior class to power following the Genpei War of 1180-85 and the altered political geographies it created. 

Elizabeth Oyler is an Associate Professor of Japanese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures. This presentation is part of a larger project on Apparitional Landscapes in noh plays about the Genpei War.