Word: basho
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...play, written in 1968, is set in Japan, in the "17th, 18th or 19th centuries." Basho, the "great 17th century poet who brought the haiku verse form to perfection," journeys along the narrow road to the deep North in search of enlightenment. After thirty years he finds it and returns home, only to find the South ruled by the outlaw Shogo, who has murdered the old emperor and named himself head of the city...
...Basho persuades Shogo's prime minister to go back with him to the deep North and enlist the aide of the "barbarians" in defeating Shogo and freeing the city. The barbarians turn out to be a British Commodore whose favorite saying is "ignorance is bliss," and his sister Georgina, a tambourine-waving soul saver. They all return to the South and a series of battles between Shogo's armies and the soldiers of the Commodore follow, with first one then the other side victorious, until finally Shogo is defeated and killed...
During the course of the play we learn that the difference between the outlaw and the British imperialists is one of means rather than end--what the one accomplishes through atrocity and terror the other gains through morality and guilt. As Georgina explains to Basho...
...Basho, a 17th century Japanese
Attuned to this theme, Bond's play is vaguely set in Japan in what might be the mid-19th century. The central figure is the great Japanese poet, Basho (Robert Symonds). He is on a quest for some radiant shaft of wisdom. Instead he encounters a power-mad dictator, Shogo (Cleavon Little), who establishes a great city, but it is overthrown by invading colonialists garbed in the Union Jack and blasting away with howitzers and Christian hymns. Edward Bond, a 36-year-old Londoner, took exactly 2½ days to write the play and uses four words to explain...