Play: The Oni’s Bride

This play, based on a folktale, comes from a collection of plays and skits created by the ACT Japanese teachers’ group for use in their primary and junior secondary classrooms. Students work cooperatively in groups or as a class to prepare and perform the play for their classmates or at a school event.This story came from a NSW Dept of Education and Training School Magazine.

Story Outline

This is a story of an oni that lived in the mountains and helped a farmer in return for his daughter’s hand in marriage. When the oni takes his wife into the mountains to live with him she drops mustard seeds along the way to help her find her way back home.

Cast

ナレーター×2　narrator×2
おに　oni
おとうさん　father
おかあさん　mother
むすめ1　daughter 1
むすめ2　daughter 2
むすめ（かいこ）　Kaiko

Script

Script Oni’s Bride (Word 31KB) Script Oni’s Bride (PDF 252KB)

Cultural Notes

Setsubun

Around February 3 (or 4) is Setsubun (Bean-throwing Ceremony). The festival is based on the old Chinese lunar calendar. Setsubun is the time to drive out bad luck, sickness and misfortune from the old year and to welcome good luck, health and fortune into the new year though the ritual of mame-maki (bean-throwing). Setsubun also refers to the division between winter and spring.

Oni

See こぶとりじいさん

Language Concepts

  • “oni wa soto fuku wa uchi”
  • leave taking – itte kimasu, itte rasshai, tadaima, okaerinasai
  • “shikata ga nai”
  • numbers and months of the year
  • onomatopoeia – gorogoro, don don don

Resource created by ACT Japanese teachers’ group (June 2003).

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