The Uses of Disguise, Deception, and Deceit in the Plays of Mishima Yukio

Mishima Yukio was Japan’s foremost playwright in the two decades following WWII. He wrote in a multiplicity of genres: tragedy, melodrama, romantic comedy/shingeki, kabuki, and modern noh. Kominz focuses on four plays in his anthology of newly translated works, exploring how Mishima’s characters use disguise, deception, and deceit as their strategy of choice to achieve every sort of end, overturning unequal power relationships between men and women, the fulfillment and betrayal of romantic love, thievery and the apprehension of criminal masterminds. The presentation will include video clips from plays in the anthology.