Oriza Hirata

The setting is an old house in the midst of the new housing developments of the Tama Hills on the outskirts of Tokyo. On an autumn night with a beautiful harvest moon, a wake is being held for a French woman named Marie who died of illness at the young age of 37. Marie was a French teacher in Japan and she and her husband Takeo have a 3-year-old daughter named Fumiko. The play begins just after a group of mourners has left, leaving only the family members and relatives. Because of the number of Marie’s family members present, most of the conversation is in French.

Takeo is distracted by the preparations for the next day’s funeral ceremony but the others have basically nothing to do and soon idle conversation begins. Marie’s younger brother, Michel, finds almost every detail of Japanese culture strange. Why are Japanese towns full of rows and rows of such unattractive buildings? Why do monkeys in Japan use the hot spring baths? Why are there buildings just for funerals that are not even churches? Takeo’s younger sister, Yukiko, and Marie’s friend, Anne, who also lives in Japan, manage to supply Michel with answers to all his questions.

Marie’s parents, Julian and Iris, and Takeo join in, but Takeo has to talk with the mortician as well. Everything they talk about, the cost of the funeral, the cremation, the grave, telegrams, deciding the seating of the guest, all seem commonsense in the Japanese context, but all so strange and unfamiliar through the eyes of the family from another culture. Each mysterious detail prompts more questions.

To this scene, Marie’s former husband, Francois, suddenly arrives completely unannounced. Yukiko leads Francois to the room where Marie lies in her coffin. Michel, who dislikes Francois, slips out for a smoke.

Francois has gotten into a fight with the mortician, who tried to stop him from kissing Marie’s body. The mortician comes in with a scratch on his face where Francois has hit him. But he is surprisingly unperturbed, saying, “There is always some kind of trouble at a funeral.” Francois has soon calmed down and apologizes to the mortician.

In the living room, they still talk about the subjects on Japanese culture like the Japanese sense of religion, and ideas about marriage also come up.

Julian and Iris seem to be puzzled by the behavior of Takeo, who doesn’t cry even though he has lost his wife. Seemingly impervious to their concern, Takeo suddenly begins searching for something. A few moments later he comes back with a novel in hand. It is Takeo Arishima’s Chiisakimonoe . There is a part in the book that has words of encouragement for children who have lost their mother and Takeo reads it to everyone, saying that now he thinks he really understands the words’ meaning.

Michel returns from his smoke. He says that the moon is beautiful tonight. Explanations are given about the Japanese “Moon Viewing” custom and the conversation wanders on to talk about how the moon is seen in other cultures. Yukiko gets up to go to the room where Marie lies, saying that she is going to show her deceased sister-in-law the moon.