A Story of Floating Weeds

A troupe of actors comes to town, short on funds and bedeviled by bad weather, so they can’t put on shows. Kihachi is the troupe’s leader. He steals off every day to visit Otsune (an ex-lover) and their son, Shinkichi, who believes his father is a long-dead civil servant. Kihachi has been paying Shinkichi’s tuition, and he’s now at university. Kihachi’s lover, Otaka, the troupe’s lead actress, learns Kihachi’s secret and plots to ruin Shinkichi and humiliate Kihachi: she offers money to Otoki, the troupe’s ingénue, to seduce Shinkichi. Soon the boy is head over heels, and Otoki finds herself with feelings for him. Can this end well or is tragedy at hand?