In Yukio Mishima’s KINKAKUJI, currently playing at Japan Society, the impeccably cast Major Curda is mesmerizing as Mizoguchi, a Zen monk-in-training who, in 1950, ends up burning down the Kinkakuji Temple. The one-man show, scripted by director Leon Ingulsurd and Mr. Curda, and adapted from Mishima’s fact-based novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, explores with surgical precision the young protagonist’s mindset leading up to the arson. Watching the play, having never read Mishima, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Dostoyevsky. Not only because both writers seem to be interested in similar subjects and themes, but also for the astonishing insight with which Mishima mines the depths of his hero’s psyche.

Young Mizoguchi stutters, is poor, and doesn’t have any friends. He grows up living with his uncle while his father serves as a Buddhist priest in a distant town. But whenever his father visits the boy, he tells his son about the Golden Pavilion, and how it is the most beautiful thing in the world. These descriptions create in the youngster’s mind a vision of a most magnificent and glorious structure. So much so that upon seeing the temple in real life for the very first time young Mizoguchi is disappointed to the point of rage.

Masterfully directed by Mr. Ingulsurd, Mr. Curda moves with the fluidity of a dancer, making excellent use of his body and the spare stage decorations to fashion his character’s exterior and interior worlds. The set, designed by artist Chiharu Shiota (whose work is on display in the Society’s gallery), and dramatically lit by Marie Yokoyama, consists of a chair, an old-fashioned microphone on a stand, and three rows of cords—red, white, and black—made of fabric, that hang from the ceiling like bamboo curtains. The curtains seem simple, yet they convey an interesting and poignant dichotomy. On the one hand, they serve to nominally shield the protagonist from view. At the same time the cords making up the curtains are so sparse that they cover up nothing at all, just as the vanities behind which Mizoguchi hides fail to conceal his true nature.

KINKAKUJI is the story of an ego eternally wounded trying to fill an unfillable void. Mishima’s hero is not likable: He’s weak, pathetic, cowardly, bitter, angry, and has delusions of grandeur born of endless self-loathing. Yet I am enthralled by him and by his story. I never want Mizoguchi to win, yet I empathize with him completely. This is art at its best, and it needs to be seen.

photos by Richard Termine

KINKAKUJI
Japan Society, 333 E 47th St.
ends on September 20, 2025
for tickets, call 212.832.1155 or visit Japan Society