By Damian Flanagan

If ever there was a film begging to be made then it is the story of 32-year-old literary wunderkind Yukio Mishima arriving in New York in the summer of 1957 with the intention of taking the American theatrical world by storm. Mishima was already a sensation in Japan — with a string of masterpieces like “Confessions of a Mask”, “The Sound of Waves” and “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion” under his belt. His best-selling lighter novels had already been turned into films, and his dramatic works like “Rokumeikan” were proving to be smash hits at the Japanese box office.

Now Mishima set his sights on conquering America and on becoming the first living Japanese writer to achieve worldwide fame. He checked into one of the best hotels in the city and set about choosing a producer for the New York debut of his dramatic works, who in turn began to recruit star players — like the famous Mexican actress Dolores Del Rio — to appear in them.

Bizarrely, the dramatic works that Mishima and his collaborators were attempting to launch on the New York stage were his “Modern Noh Plays”, a contemporary reworking of some of Japan’s oldest theatrical forms infused with generous helpings of Freudian angst and Sartrean existentialism.

What unfolded in New York was however anything but a triumphant procession. The theatrical production became immersed in delays; Mishima was forced to move into dismal lodgings; and his mental health spiralled downwards. The story of what happened to Mishima in New York, and how it affected the rest of his career, is strangely little known, but is a fascinating story of an extraordinary mind trapped in an unfamiliar place.

“Modern Noh Plays” darkly pre-figured the themes of much of Mishima’s fiction and plays throughout the 1960s, right up until his sensational death in 1970. The original Noh plays, mostly written by Kanami Kiyotsugu and Zeami Motokiyo in the late 14th and 15th century, were infused by Buddhist ideas of Karmic retribution, exposing the dream-like illusion of reality and the folly of worldly ambition. The uncanny, other-worldliness of the Noh play — performed with masks and eery music in a highly stylized slow motion — did not seem the most likely dramatic form to wow the crowds on Broadway.

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