Background
Taiheiki chûshin kôshaku (Story of the Loyal Chronicle of Great Peace: 太平記忠臣講釈) premiered in Edo at the Ichimura-za in the second month of 1766. It was an adaptation of the foremost puppet and kabuki version, the 1748 Kanadehon chûshingura (Copybook of the Treasury of Loyal Retainers: 假名手本忠臣蔵, often called simply "The Forty-seven Rônin"), whose dramaturgic re-imagining features a vendetta by the retainers of Enya Hangan (a provincial daimyô) who committed seppuku after a confrontation incited by Kô no Moronao (a chief councilor to the Shogun). The Chûshingura theatrical tale was based on on actual events from 1703 when former retainers of the lord of the Akô domain, Asano Naganori, exacted revenge by murdering Lord Kira Yoshinaka, who had (apparently) so enraged their lord that Asano attempted to murder Yoshinaka. Asano's action was an serious violation of the samurai code of behavior within a shogunal palace, whose punishment resulted in Asano's seppuku (lit., "incision of the abdomen," ritual suicide: 切腹).
The doubling structure of the Taiheki epic/plays with the Chûshingura dramas revolve around refashionings of the actual Kô no Moronao. In the historical Taiheiki (太平記), he is portrayed as a villain who is accused of unbridled violence, greed, and lewdness. It is this earlier, long-standing reputation that must have appealed to the Chûshingura playwrights when they sought a villain for their revenge tale to be set in a distant "world" (sekai), as they could not name the real-life figures in the Asano affair for fear of running afoul of the shogunate's censorship edicts.
Design
This design presents an interesting stage scene. The semi-circle that spans the left and center sheets represents the edge of a revolving section of the stage floor. It would have been used to change stage scenery in a quick and efficient manner. The first appearance of a revolving stage took place in Edo when the Edo playwright Nakamura Denshichi inroduced it sometime between 1711 and 1735 (possibly 1729). It was called bun mawashi (mawari dôgu in Osaka), which was a platform mounted on wheels that was operated along a track and controlled by four stagehands. In 1758, the playwright Namiki Shôzô I (並木正三 1730–73) formed a new type of revolving stage (mawari-butai mawari butai 回り舞台 ) for a production of his Sanjikkoku yofune no hajimari at the Kado Theater in Osaka. Namiki had a circular section cut out of the normal stage which was then rotated during performance, enabling switching from one scene to the next without the drawing of a curtain. The stage was rotated by stagehands positioned in the area below the stage. This technology was based on conventional "trick dolls" (karakuri からくり or からく里) mechanisms, which used sets of wooden gears used to maneuver puppets.
References: IKBYS-II, no. 83; NKE, p. 393.
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