Shurijo akewatashi

Author: Yamazato Eikichi
Premiered: 1930, Taishô Theatre
Japanese: 首里城明け渡し (Shurijô akewatashi)

Shurijô akewatashi (The Surrender of Shuri Castle) is a stage play by Okinawan playwright Yamazato Eikichi portraying the events of the 1879 fall of the Ryûkyû Kingdom and the turning over of Shuri castle.

The play features debates between the pro-China and pro-Japan factions within the Ryukyuan royal court at the time, and ends with Matsuda Michiyuki (the Meiji government official dispatched to Okinawa to head the dissolution of the kingdom) reading out an official notice of the kingdom's dissolution and annexation, followed by King Shô Tai departing the castle.

The play premiered in 1930 at the Taishô gekijô (Taishô Theatre), and was revived and restaged numerous times. One such revival, in 1960, with the playwright Yamazato as director, was particularly notable and received particular attention in publications such as Okinawa Graph.

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References

Okinawa Graph オキナワグラフ.
"Shurijo Castle and Performing Arts," exhibition pamphlet, National Theater Okinawa, October-December 2020.