Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees | Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura (1748)

May 08, 2023 | News On Japan

May 08, 2023 (Kabuki In-Depth) - In this video, we take a look at the eleven scenes most often performed from the epic jidaimono play Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura ("Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees").

Written in 1747 for the bunraku puppet theatre by the playwrights Takeda Izumo II, Miyoshi Shōraku and Namiki Senryū I, the same team that produced Kanadehon Chūshingura and Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami, the other two classical masterpieces of the kabuki repertoire.

This covers four of the five acts of the original play. The missing first one, including the scenes Ōuchi, Kitasaga, Kawagoe Jōshi and Heisoto, is very rarely performed nowadays. You can read the plot of this act here: https://www.kabuki21.com/ysz.php There is also a wonderful English translation of the complete bunraku script by Stanleigh H. Jones Jr., in his book "Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees: A Masterpiece of the Eighteenth-Century Japanese Puppet Theater".

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