Noh Theatre

Core Idea

Noh is a Japanese form of masked music-drama shaped in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries by the actor-playwright Kan'ami and his son Zeami, under the patronage of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. A Noh play combines chant, dance, a seated chorus and a small ensemble of flute and drums on a bare, roofed stage. Many plays follow a pattern in which a traveling monk meets a local person who turns out to be a ghost, and who returns in the second half to relive the moment that binds them to the world. The aesthetic aim Zeami valued most is *yūgen*, a subtle, deep and quiet beauty.

How It's Best Learned

Watch a recorded performance of a short play such as *Atsumori* or *Izutsu* while reading a translation, and note how little physical action occurs and how much is carried by chant, posture and mask. Diagram the Noh stage, including the bridgeway along which actors enter. Then compare the role of the Noh chorus with the Greek chorus, and read a passage of Zeami's writings on acting.

Common Misconceptions

• Noh and Kabuki are the same kind of theatre. (Noh is older, slower and more austere, with masks and a seated chorus. Kabuki arose in the early seventeenth century and is known for elaborate makeup, spectacular staging and broader popular appeal.)
• Noh tries to present events realistically. (It is highly stylized. Movement is slow and measured, and the plays often take place in memory or dream rather than in the present.)
• Every actor in Noh wears a mask. (The principal actor, the *shite*, usually wears one when playing a ghost, a woman, a god or a demon. The secondary actor, the *waki*, does not.)

Explainer

In the 1370s, the young shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu saw a performance by the actor Kan'ami and his son, then a boy, later known as Zeami. He became their patron. Under that support, Kan'ami and especially Zeami (c. 1363-c. 1443) shaped Noh into the form that is still performed in Japan. Zeami wrote many of the plays in today's repertoire and a series of treatises on acting and composition.

A Noh stage is a square, roofed platform of polished wood, with a painted pine tree on the back wall. Actors enter along a bridgeway, the *hashigakari*, on the audience's left. A chorus of about eight sits at the side, and musicians play a flute and drums at the back. There is almost no scenery. A simple frame may stand for a boat, a well or a hut.

The roles are few. The *shite* is the principal actor, often masked, who dances the central part. The *waki* is the secondary actor, frequently a traveling monk, who asks questions and prompts the story. Comic *kyōgen* performers may appear in an interlude, and separate short kyōgen farces are traditionally performed between Noh plays.

Many of the best-known plays follow a two-part pattern called *mugen* (dream) Noh. In the first half, the monk arrives at a famous place and meets a villager who knows a great deal about its past. The villager vanishes. In the second half, the same actor returns in mask and full costume as the ghost of someone who died there, and dances the memory that keeps the spirit bound to the world. In *Atsumori*, the monk was once Kumagai, the warrior who killed the young Taira noble Atsumori in battle. The ghost relives the fight, then lets go of his hatred.

Zeami's highest aesthetic value was *yūgen*, a subtle and profound grace that suggests more than it shows. That aim explains the slow pace, the restrained gestures and the importance of the mask, whose expression seems to change with the tilt of the head and the light.

Noh influenced Western modernists. Ezra Pound published translations based on Ernest Fenollosa's notes, and W. B. Yeats modeled *At the Hawk's Well* (1916) on Noh. When you read or watch a Noh play, ask what is suggested rather than stated, and how chant, mask and stillness carry its feeling.