On her sixteenth birthday, Kei runs away from her aunt's house and wanders into the yard of the Tsutsumis, a wealthy family involved in the trade business with China.
[1] A Woman's Life was one of two literary works commission by the Japanese military during World War II, the other being Osamu Dazai's novel Regretful Parting (Sekibetsu, 1945).
The play was commissioned in the hopes of promoting the five principles of cooperation decided upon at the Greater East Asia Conference held in Tokyo earlier.
The play was commissioned by Japanese military authorities in the hopes of promoting the five principles of cooperation decided upon at the Greater East Asia Conference held in Tokyo.
At the time these alterations to A Woman's Life were being made, Morimoto was suffering from tuberculosis died later that year, just a few months after his new version of the play was published into book form.
Unlike Regretful Parting, the only other literary work commissioned alongside A Woman's Life, Morimoto's play remained popular even after the end of World War II and is still read and performed in Japan today.
The role of Ninobiki was played by Maria Babanova, a famous actress of the time, and the director was a young Japanese man by the name of Yoshiki Okada.
[4] Morimoto finished the manuscript for A Woman's Life in February 1945 and the play was first directed by Mantarō Kubota and performed in Tokyo by the Bungakuza in April of that same year.