theater

January 03rd

Read the assignments 3 and 4 from The Chinese Theatre by Jack Chen – (The

Yangko Theatre, The Western Style), assignment 5 from Chinese Theatre:

From its Origins to the Present Day by Colin Mackerres –(Traditional Theatre

in Contemporary China) and post your thoughts for the assigned readings and

respond/comment on one other

classmate’s posting

January 04th

Read the assignments 6 and 7 from The Traditional Theatre of Japan by John

Wesley Harris – (Kyogen, Noh) and post your thoughts for the assigned

reading

and respond/comment on one other classmate’s posting.

January 05th

Read the assignments 8 and 9 from Kabuki Drama by Shutaro Miyake and post

your thoughts for the assigned reading and respond/comment on one other

classmate’s posting

January 06th

Read the assignment 10 and 11 from Inside the Puppet Box: A Performance

Collection of Wayang Kulit at the Museum of International Folk Art and the

review by Felicia Katz-Harris and post your thoughts for the assigned reading

and respond/comment on one other classmate’s posting.

Review
Reviewed Work(s): INSIDE THE PUPPET BOX: PERFORMANCE COLLECTION OF WAYANG
KULIT AT THE MUSEUM OF INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART by Felicia Katz-Harris
Review by:

Kathy Foley

Source: Asian Theatre Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1 (SPRING 2012), pp. 319-320
Published by: University of Hawai’i Press
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Book Reviews 319

this book and recommend it to scholars and students of Indonesian arts and

society, but it will also appeal to a more general audience without specialized
knowledge.

Jennifer Goodlander
University of Kentucky

INSIDE THE PUPPET BOX: PERFORMANCE COLLECTION OF

WAYANG KULIT AT THE MUSEUM OF INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART.

By Felicia Katz-Harris. Seattle: Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe,
New Mexico and University of Washington Press, 2010. 200 pp., 270 color
illustrations, bibliography, index. Paper, $45.00.

There have been many books on wayang kulit purwa of Central Java over the
years. This book adds another resource and is most notable in that it primarily
documents a collection that was used by a currently prominent figure, Dalang
Purbo Asmoro, who has performed in international tours and has risen to
prominence as an exponent of Solonese style wayang. He also teaches in the
puppetry division at Institut Seni Indonesia (Indonesian Institute of the Arts)
in Surakarta. Katz-Harris’s introduction gives a quick overview of wayang kulit
in visual and performance dimensions: An especially clear section on puppet
making is amply illustrated. A brief description of wanda (different forms of
the same character, which Katz-Harris translates as “inner mode”), simpingan
(arrangement of figures that frames the screen during performance), and
dhudhahan (puppets not included in the simpingan during a performance)
prepares the reader for the heart of the book: well-photographed images of
the sixty-six figures in the right simpingan, the sixty-two puppets of the left simp
ingan, and the approximately seventy-five that are reserved for the dhudhuhan.
This last group may be pulled out because they are used in each performance
(such as the clowns and ogres that appear in the flower battle [perang kem
bang]) or are not part of the system of types (animals, etc.), or are for other
reasons reserved.

The book will appeal to collectors due to the clear and well-photo
graphed images of most of the major puppets that are frequently found in a
Surakarta kotak (puppet box). Though there are differences between carvers,
nonetheless this text will help those interested in iconography. The book will
also be of use for those who are trying (as one customarily does in learning
wayang) to memorize character names and their brief story details. The figure
identifications are more nuanced than the normal wayang book in that Katz
Harris has attempted to identify the maker, place, and date of construction.
This is a much better documented “set” of figures than what has been pre
sented in most wayang texts. The book is also of interest for those who study
contemporary wayang performance in that it documents what might actu
ally be found in a puppet box of a contemporary dalang (hence we get three
versions of the important Pandawa hero Arjuna, two of the monkey general
Hanuman, etc.), puppets that are frequently used are found in multiple itéra

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320 Book Reviews

tions to give the puppeteer choices. The text took me back to my own experi
ence of spending numerous hours documenting my teacher’s kotak (puppet
box), so I could immediately identify each character as he or she entered
during a performance.

The logic of the collection is partially disrupted by including a lim
ited number of figures of the more populist dalang, Ethus Susmono (called
dalang gila “the crazy puppetmaster”): American viewers will find his semi
realistic figures of Sadam Hussain and George Bush (Fig. 52) facing off from
his wayangplanet a fun addition. Still these figures used by Dalang Enthus and
made by Rasimin disrupt the logic of the general organization: the simpingan
and the Purbo Asmoro collection.

The book grows from an exhibit which Katz-Harris mounted at the
Santa Fe Museum of International Folk Art in 2009-2010. The book does not

include substantive discussion of movement, music, or story (though brief out
lines of the Ramayana and Mahabharata are in the introduction). Rather, one
gets parts of each character’s story in the brief identification of each figure.
We generally learn the name of the performer who used it, the artist, the place
and date of creation, materials, and size. Some of the figures are beautiful;
others are sometimes pedestrian. As with a box of a practicing dalang, there
are figures from many makers collected at different moments. We get a firm
sense what might be in the box of a practicing dalangwho has been active from
the 1990s to the present. One figure from Narto Sabto, the top master of the
1960s-1980s, is there as well.

The text has been corrected by significant experts who helped Katz
Harris (Pak Sumarsan, Kathyrn Emerson). It represents Dalang Purbo
Asmoro’s practices: that is, Bhatata Yudha (The Great War) is noted as one
lakon (play), which would not represent the older puppeteers’ modes of
dealing with the story material. Sometimes translations seem nonstandard;
for example, wahyu is “gift,” when it is usually translated as “divine blessing/
power.”

That said, this is a well-produced and reliable source for puppet iden
tification. It helps us understand the story choices and puppet collection of
Dalang Purbo Asmoro. This makes it a useful tool for students, collectors, and
those who want an introduction to the art in its current practice. The book
does not take on historical or theoretical terrain or address new innovations;

for example, the currently favored campursari (mixed entertainment), which
combines wayang with singing, comedy, and so on, is mentioned only in pass
ing. Still, this is a good introduction into the wayang world, documenting the
visual side of the art and major characters.

Kathy Foley

University of California, Santa Cruz

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Contents

p. 319
p. 320

Issue Table of Contents

Asian Theatre Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1 (SPRING 2012) pp. i-viii, 1-338
Front Matter
FROM THE EDITOR [pp. v-vii]
GENDER AND WOMEN IN ASIAN THEATRE
䙥浡汥⁒潬敳⁡湤⁅湧慧敭敮琠潦⁗潭敮⁩渠瑨攠䍬慳獩捡氠卡湳歲楴⁔桥慴牥•䬁欞浩礁Ğ洞浡洢㨠䄠䍯湴敭灯牡特⁔桥慴牥⁔牡摩瑩潮⁛灰⸠ㄭ㌰�
How Not to Act like a Woman: Gender Ideology and Humor in West Java, Indonesia [pp. 31-53]
Gender, Power, and Puppets: Two Early Women “Dalangs” in Bali [pp. 54-77]
INTERVIEW
An Interview with Poile Sengupta [pp. 78-88]
LITERATURE REVIEW
Gender, Tradition, and Culture in Translation: Reading the “Onnagata” in English [pp. 89-111]
Is the “Onnagata” Necessary? [pp. 112-121]
Reflections on the “Onnagata” [pp. 122-125]
䄠噡楳桮慶愠周敡瑲楣慬⁐敲景牭慮捥⁩渠乥灡氺⁔桥•䬁Ŵ琁⬭灹ā歨⁯映䱡汩瑰畲⁃楴礠孰瀮‱㈶ⴱ㘳�
卩湧楮朠楮⁴桥⁗潲歰污捥㨠卡污特浥渠慮搠䅭慴敵爠丁䴠健牦潲浡湣攠孰瀮‱㘴ⴱ㠲�
Chinese “Chuanqi” Opera in English: Directing “The West Wing” with Modern Music [pp. 183-205]
EMERGING SCHOLARS PAPERS
Han-Tang “Zhongguo Gudianwu” and the Problem of Chineseness in Contemporary Chinese Dance: Sixty Years of Creation and Controversy [pp. 206-232]
Negotiating Class, Taste, and Culture via the Arts Scene in Singapore: Postcolonial or Cosmopolitan Global? [pp. 233-254]
䄠健牳潮慬⁓潲牯眺•䌞ꍩ⁌ươ湧∠慮搠瑨攠偯汩瑩捳⁯映乯牴栠慮搠卯畴栠噩整湡洠孰瀮′㔵ⴲ㜵�
Everyday Flamboyancy in Chennai’s “Sabha” Theatre [pp. 276-290]
Performance Reviews
Review: untitled [pp. 291-301]
Review: untitled [pp. 302-304]
Book Reviews
Review: untitled [pp. 305-307]
Review: untitled [pp. 308-310]
Review: untitled [pp. 310-313]
Review: untitled [pp. 313-316]
Review: untitled [pp. 316-319]
Review: untitled [pp. 319-320]
Review: untitled [pp. 321-323]
Review: untitled [pp. 324-324]
Review: untitled [pp. 325-327]
Review: untitled [pp. 327-330]
Review: untitled [pp. 330-331]
Review: untitled [pp. 332-334]
Review: untitled [pp. 335-337]
Review: untitled [pp. 337-338]
Back Matter

-.. ,

JACK CHEN

ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR

PU 1)ENNIS DOBSON

. – -. _.

I :
i :

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

. ICONTENTS

”

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE

The Classical Theatre
Its History. Conventions: Colour, Costume, ‘Props’, Music
Character Types, Make-up, Gestures. The Actor. Types o

Plays. The Role of the Classical Drama today.

CHAPTER TWO

The Western Style
Origins, Plays and Playwrights.

CHAPTER THREE

The Yangko Theatre

PAGE

The Chinese Theatre

plete theatrical monopoly of the imperial feudal culture and its classi-
cal theatre. Then, when the last dynasty was overthrown in 191 I,
ithad to battle in an unequal struggle not only against the ideologi-
cal resistance of the old culture, but against the persecution of the
new dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek and his allied war lords and
fascist groups which used every means at their command to combat
democratic and progressive ideas. This resulted in severe pressure
against the modern Western style theatre for, as I have already
suggested in discussing the classical theatre, Chinese cultural tra-
dition has always regarded the theatre not only as a place of
entertainment, but primarily as a place of instruction. Thus there
has never been any serious argument in Chinese intellectual
circles about the necessity or even the desirability of ‘art for art’s
sake’. As Hsia Yen, one of the four leading contemporary drama-
tists, writes: ‘The overwhelming majority of modern Chinese
dramatists have consciously used their plays as a means to advance
social reform’.

In the present phase of the political and social revolution that
is taking place in China, the peasant and the middle classes are
freeing themselves politically and economically from the old
feudal system and from the shackles that have been riveted on
them by the small group of big business monopolists gathered
around Chiang Kai-shek. Success in this revolution which by an
historic ‘paradox’ is led by the Chinese working class, and which
now seems to be a matter of the near future, will present a full and
favourable opportunity for the development of a progressive
Chinese middle class culture, just as it will present the middle
classes with a broad opportunity to develop trade and industry.
This presages a rapid and widespread development of the Western
style theatre-both progressive middle-class and proletarian-
in China.

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CHAPTER THREE

THE
YANGKO
THEATRE

A STUDY OF THE Chinese Yangko Theatre is a study of the
development of a modern theatrical art form out of a primitive
folk art within the space of the last few years. In I938-ten years
ago-Yangko dancing was a folk art curiosity in North-west
China’s Shensi Province. Today it has spread in its modern form
of Yangko drama dealing with the most complex contemporary
subjects, all over North and North-east China. In the wake of the
revolutionary People’s Armies it is conquering the imaginations
of the people of Central China. In parts of Shensi-notably the
famous Yenan Border Region on the verges of Shensi, Kansu
and Ninghsia~ne out of every twelve people enjoy the pleasures
of a Yangko dance as a regular feature of their life.

Shensi Province is bounded by the great V-shaped bend of the
Yellow River. It is one of the cradles of Chinese civilisation and
therefore one of the sources of the classical Chinese theatre. Down
to this day you can find here survivals of the primitive folk rituals
from which the classical theatre sprang. Such a survival is the
original Yangko. It is a folk song and dance performed at the
time of field labour; a fertility rite danced by youths and maidens.
As performed in the recent past it was a group dance with some
twenty or thirty dancers to a group. The leader held an open um-
-brella or a metal rod and he sang the theme of the play while the
chorus chanted in answer. Male and female dancers faced each
other in opposite lines. In later days, however, the female parts

The Chinese Theatre

were, as in the classical theatre, played by boys. The songs are
mostly in the form of questions and answers between the men and
women, love themes or congratulatory addresses. The basic dance
movement is a vigorous advance of three steps forward followed
by one swinging step backwards and sideways. This movement
sets the rhythm for entrance and exit of the troupe. In between,
there are many variations of rhythm, step and gesture corres-
ponding to the characters the dancers personify, but usually, as
befits the central theme of the rite, the swaying, swinging move-
ments are suggestive of sex.

Two Yangko Dancers

I had always thought that the mincing steps, the paper umbrel-
las and fans, the peculiar way in which ballerinas of the classical
Western ballet in ‘Chinese transformation scenes’ dance with the
index finger of both hands pointing upwards before them, was
entirely make-believe ‘Chinoiserie’, but I found that this style of
representing Chinese dancing is quite authentic. These are the
very steps and gestures that one sees in Shensi Yangko dancing.

In addition to the solos of the principal characters there are
56

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The Yangko Theatre

group movements in which the lines of the dancers weave fanciful
patterns on the ground to the accompaniment of the rhythmic
beats of the drums, the gongs, the punctuating or exciting clash
of the cymbals and the melodious line of the Hu Ch’in violin.
Commentators note that the leading musical role was played by the
percussion. The strings and wind instruments are a later additio~.
Not infrequently a clown appeared as a separate character. It IS
abundantly clear that Yangko was essentially an out-of-doors
spectacle since it was of two main types: ‘A story on the ground’
performed on foot, or, ‘a story on horseback’, in which latter case
the theme of the dance drama was usually an heroic historical one
like the famous combat between the General Lu Pu of the Han
dynasty (206 B.C.) and the Three Heroes.

Such was Yangko when the Communist-led People’s Armies
first arrived in Shensi Province in 1934.

It was in 1937, at the start of the full-scale struggle against the
Japanese invasion, that the local Communist propaganda groups
began to make creative use of the ancient Yangko traditions. In
the first typical new Yangko, the leader, instead of an umbrella,
carried a rifle or a farming tool or other symbol and the line of
dancers or chorus, instead of acting like men and women courting,
dressed themselves as farmers, students, workers, soldiers or mer-
chants and represented the people of all classes united in the
struggle against the invader. The new theme songs expressed
various new social and political ideas. The clown was now often
dressed like a Japanese or a quisling. Yet, few intellectuals even
then thought of Yangko as an art with great possibilities, though
the new Yangko became more and more popular among the
peasants. It was in fact a farmer, Liu Chi-jen of the Yenan Region
who further developed the new Yangko in 1937, by incorporating
a short dramatic action as an extension of the theme song and
dance. Liu Chi-jen’s group produced Yangko dance dramas
whose names are self-explanatory: ‘Public Food Reserves for

The Chinese Theatre

National Salvation’, ‘The People’s Defence Corps on Guard’.
Yangko now took hold of the popular imagination as it had
never before done when it was merely a seasonal fertility rite
rooted in mystical superstition.

Yangko evenings were more and more frequently arranged
in villages, in market towns, in school yards or village meeting-
halls. First, the clangorous instruments summon the people with
their vigorous dance rhythm in typical and unmistakably
Yangko style. The expectant crowd forms a big open circle. The
leaders set the theme of the spectacle in a ballad and the chorus,
dressed as farmers, follows them in the opening dance. Three steps
forward, a sweeping sidestep back. Soon the ‘audience’ too joins
in the general round dance. There is all the merriment of a village
fete the world over as the young entice the oldsters to unloosen
their f~et, forget their dignity for the moment and join in the
dance. At Yangko evenings in Yenan I have seen the leading
officials of the government and the Communist Party dragged
into the laughing circle, though General Chu T eh, Commander-
in-Chief of the People’s Armies, never needs a second invitation.
Finally, the music reaches a climax of speed and drum beats. Inside
the circle that is then formed by the public, the leaders perform a
simple play in song and verse, dialogue and dance. A young
brother and sister are turning up virgin soil to help increase pro-
duction for the national war effort. The brother teases his sister
by pretending to be lazy. The girl gets very indignant and tries
to persuade him to reform. She uses all the well-tried arguments
of the propagandists, but the boy seems to take no notice at all,
till with a great laugh he gives up the joke just as his sister is re-
duced to tears. Th~ happy ending leads to general rejoicing and
merrymaking. The chorus starts the round dance till once again
it becomes general. Often two or three plays will follow in quick
succeSSIOn.

‘The villains’, writes Guenther Stein in his Challenge of Red
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. A cBhensi “CYangko n .5r{elody

Theme in ., Brother and Sister Cultivating Virgin Soil”

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….

The Chinese Theatre

China, ‘are either Japanese soldiers and Chinese traitors or witch
doctors, loafers and other anti-social elements who hamper the
war eff~rt, the increase of production, or the march of political
and socIal progress. The heroes and heroines are Eighth Route
Army (People’s Army) soldiers, militiamen, or simple pioneers
of class unity and mutual aid; fighters against superstition, illiter-
acy, dirt and disease; or model workers in villages, factories, co-
operatives and government offices whose individual action has
aroused the initiative of the masses.’

. By 194~, at the height of the struggle against the Japanese inva-
SlO~, the tntellectuals in these Communist-led areas of the great
~eslstanc~ Movement became convinced that hitherto they had
clrcumscflbed their activities too much within their own intimate
circles and interests, that to broaden their outlook and the scope
of their work they must, as Chou Erh-fu, who has himself pro-
duced several successful Yangko, writes, ‘really grasp the spirit
a~d feelings of the Chinese people, go out to the villages and live
W1t~ them, learn their language, how they express their feelings in
theIr own art. Encouraged by talks with Mao Tze-tung, the Com-
munist Party leader, it was then that the intellectuals joined in the
!angk? activities with a new zest and injected fresh inspiration
tnt~ thIS newest art form. ‘They discarded their former prejudice
agatnst Yangko as ‘lowbrow’ entertainment or as a remnant of
feudal art that in itself bore poisonous elements of feudal ideas
superstition and sexuality. They ceased their literary attacks o~
Yangko, and became its most sympathetic supporters and enthu-
siastic participants!’

Yangko began to develop along more complex lines as the
two streams of culture from the peasants and the modem intel-
lectuals met and joined. Today, some performances like that of the
White Haired Woman and Chou Tsi-shan last for four or five hours
with many scenes and with an action spread over many years. I~
some of the more elaborate performances produced on stages by
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The Yangko Theatre

the students of the Liberated Area Universities, one can trace the
influence of the classical theatre and also of the Western theatre
of the most advanced type. In their acting of certain types they
adapt many of the ‘gesture patterns’ of the classical theatre.

Thus a new theatrical form has arisen that is remarkable for its
great vitality and potentialities. It stands close to the springs of
national art. Through the intellectuals it is able to draw on all the
accumulated stores of cultural wealth of both China and the West.
It has spread rapidly throughout the Liberated Areas that have
been freed from the Chiang Kai-shek dictatorship and advances
as the popular revolution advances, taking on ever new aspects as
it is enriched by the inspiration of various, more local, cultures.

In many villages of these regions Yangko has become a regu-
lar weekly event. One of the Ten Small Points that the People’S
Government has widely proclaimed and encouraged for the im-
provement of village life, calls for the establishment of at least
one Yangko group in every community. Guenther Stein in his
book on the new China writes: ‘The Chinese country and small
town folk love entertainment and are starved for it. The Yangko
has acted on them like rain on parched earth. It has brought them
not only theatre, but theatre they can easily understand. For it
deals with matters close to their own lives-instead of putting
before them the kings, queens, and concubines, the feudal war-
riors, courtiers, ghosts, and jesters which dominated their ances-
tors’ imaginations in ages long gone by when Chinese art became
formal and stagnant.’

Nothing can remain static in the marvellous epoch of change
that China has entered upon, and least of all the Theatre-that
synthesis of all the imaginative arts. Classical Style Theatre,
Western Style Theatre and Yangko will all, that is certain, have
great new developments to show even while this book is being
printed, so we will attempt no final judgement.

A CHIVALROUS MAN IN II SHIBARAKU,”
ONE OF II THE EIGHTEEN BEST PLAYS I

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Reproduction of thp color print . by
Toyokuni Utagawo the first (1769-

-1825), owned by the Theatrical
Arts Museum at Waseda University

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KABUKI DRAMA
BY

– –
SHUTARO MIYAKE

JAPAN TRAVEL BUREAU
TOKYO

– — ……….

Published ‘in April, 1938; revised in

December, 1948 j February, 1952;

February, 1953

Printed b¥ fj:OSOKAWA PRINTING CO,! Tok yo, Japan

“””>N
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1<3 ms- f,N't= It ~ r

EDITORIAL Nai

The purpose of the Tourist Library Series is to give
to the passing tourists and other foreigners interested in
J lipan a basic knowledge of various phases of Japanese
culture. When completed, the Series is expected to in-
clude a hundred volumes or so, and will give a complete
picture of Japanese culture, old and new.

The Library was started in 1934 by the Board of
Tourist Industry and was transferred to the Japan Travel
Bureau in 1943, when 40 volumes had been completed.

From the beginning the Library attained a high rep-
utation as a concise but reliable interpreter of Japanese
culture, and the demand for the volumes steadily increas-
ed both in Japan and abroad . Unfortunately, however,
the old volumes are all out of print. The Japan Travel
Bureau, therefore, has begun a new series,-revising and
reprinting some of the old volumes, and issuing others
on entirely new and equally interesting subjects.

Each volume in the Library is the work of a recogniz-
ed authority on the subject, and it is hoped that by
perusing the se studies of Japanese life the reader will
gain some insight into the unique culture that has
developed in this country throughout the ages.

The present volume, “Kabuki Drama,” is the work
of Mr. Shiitaro Miyake, who is an acknowledged au-
thority on the Bunraku Puppet Playas well as the
Kabuki Drama. He is also well known as the regular

66462

drama crItIc of the Mainich i Newspaper and a member
of the spec jal co un cil of the Cultur al Properties’ Pro-
tection Commiss ion .

This fo “th d” . h -. Ul e It1On, p ublIshed only half a year after
t .e thIrd revised edition went to press, is an evidence
of t~e ever-increasing interes t shown by foreign en-
thusIasts, both here and abroa d, in this grand old art
of Japan.

The new editi on h as an added fea t . -h fi ure m t e lne
grade o~ art paper th at is used for most of the photo-
graphs m th e text. Thi s, tog~ther with the up-to-date
revisions and I d h co ore p otographs, adds greatly to its
readabili ty.

Dece mber, 1952
THE EDITOR

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CONTENTS

Pa ge

1. How to Appreciate Kabuki. . . . . . . . . . .. 11
An Analysis of the Kabuki-A Land of
Dreams- ” Daikon”-Its Power of Expression.

II. Characteristics of the Kabuki. . . . . . . . . . . 16
Female Roles-Their No ted Players-High-
born Daughters-Courtesans.

JII. l\1achinery Peculiar to the Kabuki Stage .. 33
Curtains – “Hanamichi ” – The Revolving
Stage – ” Ki” – “Chobo” – Geza” – ” Deba-

h,” ” t T ” yas 1 – Auro go

1V. Principal Kabuki Plays. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 45
The Eighteen Bes t Plays-“Arago to”-Clas-
sical P lays-“Sewamono”-“Kizewamono”

V. Technique Peculiar to the Kabuki . . . . . . . 52
The Pantomime Show-“Koroshi”-“Michi-

k'” ” T h’ .” “l\I,r t’ ” I yu 1 – a c Imawa n – l lono gaa n – n-
spection of the Head – Revue Element-
“Sawari” and ” T surane”-“Seppuku”

VI. Symbolism and Impressioni sm m the
Kabuki … …… . ….. .. …….. 69

The Black Curtain-“Yabudatami”-“Nami-
ita”-The Story of Ri ce .

-VII. The Story Value of the Kabuki. . . . . . . . . 72
“Sukeroku”-“Kumagai’s Camp”-“Kampei ”

VIII. Practical Guide to the Present-day Kabuki. 78
Appendix (Notes on Some of the Famous

Kabuki Plays)… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 85
Index …………… . …………. 121

Ancient Sketches of Kabuki Actor&-

ILLUSTRATIONS

A Chivalrous Man in “Shibaraku” (Color Print)’
. . . . . . . Frontispiece

Page

The Fagade of the Kabukiza Theater . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Interior of the Kabukiza Thea ter. . . . . . . . . . . 14
Players on the Passage to the Stage ……….. . 14
Utaemon Nakamura as a Woman-servant-from

“K . J’ h'” agamI I S 1 .. … ……… . ………• 17
A L · ‘D f “K . J’ h'” IOn s ance–rom agamI IS 1

(In Colors) ………. . …… . ……. 18, 19
Children Actors and Tokiz6 Nakamura as a Wet

Nurse . . …. . …. … …………….. . 20
Baik6 Onoe, as Princess Y aegaki -hime ……. .. . 21
A Female Impersonator Preparing for the Stage 22, 23
Wig-dressers in the Dressing Room ……….. .
A Scene from “Sukeroku” ……………… .
A S f “II h- NT” – h ‘k- ” cene rom onc 0 IJUS 1 0 ……….. •
“Kumadori,” Special Make-up Used in Kabuki ..
Varieties of “Kumadori” (In Colors) ……… .
The Authentic Curtain Used on Kabuki Stages … .
Actors on the H anamichi . …… .. ………. .
A Samurai Rises onto the Hanamichi by the Trap-

lift …… . ……………………… .

2 rl.

27
27

31
33
35

35
A Part of the Revolving Stage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 36
Chobo Musicians. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Ki yo m oto Musicians. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 39
A Kurogo , Black Hooded Attendant . . . . . . . . . . . 4-0
From the Eighteen Best Plays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43, 44
“Chushingura” and “Sugawara Denju Tenarai-

I kagami” ………………………. . . 47

A scene from “Koibikyaku Yamato Orai” …… . 48
A Scene from “Shinju-Ten-no-Amijima” ……. . 51
A Scene from “Sannin Kichisa” ………….. ‘ 51
A Pantomime ·Show ………………….. . 52
A “1\1)~l).iyuki” . (Travel of Two Lovers) …… ” 55
A Sw.ord . Fight : . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Inspe~t.ing a Severed Head. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 56
Tales of Princess Usuyuki. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 56
“Kumagai Monogatari” by Kichiemon Nakamura

(In Colors) ………………. .. … …. 59
A Scene from “Musume Dojoji” ………… ” 63
A Chorus Dance. . . . . . 64
A Scene from “Kirare y~~~;,’ …………. ” 67
The Harakiri Scene from “Chfr~hi’n’g~~~;’: : : : : : : 67
A Scene from “Sukeroku” 73
The ‘~Michiyuki” Scene fr~l~’ ;’Chfr~hi~’g~~~;’ : : : : 75
A Scene from “Ichinotani Futabagunki” . . . . . . .. 76
Poses of Well-known Kabuki Actors. . . . . . . . . 81-84.
At the Kabukiza Theater. ……………… 107, 108
Scenes from the Popular Kabuki Plays (8 photos)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 109-112
A Scene from “Kamakura Sandaiki”. . . . . . .. 109
The Sushi Shop Scene from “Yoshitsune Sem- .

bonzakura” 109
The “Kinkakuji~;’ S~~n’e’ . fr~~ . ~’G’i~~ . ‘S’ail:~i

Sh ‘k-k'” 1 0 1 ” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 110
The Amagasaki Scene from “Ehon Taikoki”. .. no
The Mustering Scene from “Benten Kozo”. . .. 111
A Scene from “Kochiyama to Naozamurai”. . .. 111

. “Fujimusume,” the Dance of a Wistaria Maiden 112
The Katsuragi Mountain Scene from “Tsuchi-

gumo” ………. . …………. . …… 112

I
j •

L HOW TO ApPRECIATE KABUKI

~hat is Kabuki?
An answer for the uninitiated may be supplied by

the study of the etymology of the word itself, which
shows that (gabuki” is a type of acting based on the
arts of singing and dancing. It will thus be seen that
Kabuki is not acting, pure and simple; it . is fundamen-
tally different from Western dramiJ

rln the Kabuki play, singing and dancing occurs dur-
ingThe course of the development of a story characteriz-
ed by dramatic elements, and the whole performance is
executed as a highly refined art. To be exact the Kabuki
may be described as a play more like a revue than a
drama, in the European sense-a play in which a clas-
sical story is enlivened with spectacular scenes .

@.e Kabuki is a classical play for the masses and
is rich in artistic qualities. It naturally follows that the
Kabuki is presented in large theaters, and not, as with
modern plays of the West, in a small theater intended
to serve the sole purpose of art for its own sake.:J
–i:\1oreover, the Kabuki is a very complicated dramatic

form. A Kabuki play contains material not in accordance
with reason, and its classic style is but a feeble excuse.
Foreigners seeing a Kabuki play for the first time in-
v ari ably think it is “wonderful.” And “wonderful” is
a fitting epithet for the irrational element in KabukD So
a theater built with the principles of modern stage science

~ 11

9. “5eppllku” (HarakIri)
In feudal days the ethical ideal of the SamuraI was

to give up his life for his lord. When it became neces-
sary for him to die, he resorted, by preference, to a
painful method of disembowelling himself by cutting in-
to his abdomen with a sword–called by foreigners hara-
kiri, but more commonly known as seppuku among the
Japanese. From a profound sense of shame and respon-
sibility the samurai would as often as not resort to this
act of daring by way of self-inflicted punishment.

Thus up to the dawn of New Japan a multitude of
Samurai of great promise took their own lives by com-
mi tting harakiri.

The Kabuki play makes it a point of actually por-
traying seppuku when a Samurai is to commit suicide . It
may indeed be said that seppuku is a feature peculiar
to the Kabuki.

One notable example of harakiri is found in Act IV
of the “Chushingura,” already mentioned. The name
of the charac ter is En-ya Hangan . The scene, which is
an important part of the play, shows a harakiri scene true
to life. En-ya Hangan is ceremonally dressed in white.
And other details of e tique tte a r e closely followed , such
at the condi tion of th e mat on which the actor sits.
When harakiri is performed, the mat must be reversed.

Vi. SYMBOLISM AND IMPRESSIONISM
IN THE KABUKI

As has repeatedly been stated, realism and rational-
ism must not be sought in a Kabuki play, which is not
a play to be heard, but rather a sort of revue to please
the eye . In revues, however, reality and truth are not
lost sight of by their writers in their work of presenting
the beautiful. Though there are some exceptions, the
contrary method is used by the Kabuki dramatist. He
aims at the beautiful presentation of the unreal and the
unnatural. This point is dwelt on at some length in the
following paragraphs.

There is a well-known play named “Suzugamori,”
(At Suzugamori), which belongs to the Kizewamono
class. In this play one sees at the opening, when the cur-
tain is drawn off, a black curtain in the background. This
kuromaku, as the black curtain is called in the language
of the Kabuki stage, symbolizes the darkne ss of night.
The suggestion of a black night is what it is intended
to convey, and it is needless for the spectator to inquire
whether it is a rice-field or a hill that is hidden. In the
same scene there is at the right and left a sort of two
fold screen called yabudatami made of bamboo and
bamboo twigs. This repre sents a bamboo grove. Some-
times a sea is symbolized by a board on which are paint-
ed waves-technically called namiita.

It will be seen that, in stage scenery as in other

—.J 69

teatures, th e Kabuki piay IS essentiail y symboiic In tech-
nique. It is important that the audience should be pre-
pared to adjust their minds to sy mbolic representation .

Some twenty year s ago “The Forest,” a new Russian
play, was staged in Japan by a theatrical company then
recently organi.zed. In the production of the play, it is
said, the method of Meierchold was adopted. Symbolism
Was u sed in the stage scenery to a considerable extent.
A tree, for instance, was meant for a large grove . Simi-
larly, a single window served for a group of windows.
The Kabuki play works on the same principles of sym-
bolism and impressionism. For the past two centuries or
more these principles have characterized the Kabuki
play ‘not only in setting, but in the spirit of the actor.
To do the Kabuki full justice, therefore, this quintes-
sence of Kabukiism should not be lost sight of.

It is related of the fifth Danjuro Ichikawa, one of
Japan’s stage stars who lived in Edo more than one
hundred years ago, that when taking a meal on the stage
he never used real boiled rice, but instead had some
white cotton in the bowl, which he manipulated so skil-
fully that the audience was deceived. This shows what
hi s idea of art was bk e. The art of Kabuki consists not
in making the real look real, but in making the unreal
l ook real. From this it may be argued that symbolistic
representation is the so ul of Kabuki.

Let us take up the case of the mie already explained.
The straining of the eyes and a steady gaze which make
up the pose of mie may seem unnatural, but this is the
Kabuki way of emphasizing the senses of excitement,

70 “”‘”‘

sorrow, and emotion.
Tho se who laugh at the Kabuki playas unnatural

are themselv es at fault, as it is an art which puts un-
naturalne ss out of the question . What it aspires to js
so mething higher-to transport the audience to the world
of illusion by presenting a piquant slice of life or a
strong expression of human sentiment through the
medi.um of suggestion, impressionism, and symbolism .

In the appreciation of the Kabuki, therefore, one
must be richly endowed with imagination; otherwise one
will fail to understand the symbolic and impress ioni sti c
expression of the Kabuki. One mu st also be a person
of great sensibility, who is capable of perceiving beauty
in the apparent grotesqueness and cruelty of a kubijikken
or who discovers a dramatic element in harakiri. Only
with such imagination and such sensibility can one
penetrate into a feeling intricate but common to all
humanity rou ghly repre sented by a mie, a pose re-
inforced by the sound of wooden clappers.

” K i” or wooden clappers lIsed
t o indicate the beginning, th e end,
and th e intermissi ons of a pl ay,

—-‘ 71

-.. ,

JACK CHEN

ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR

PU 1)ENNIS DOBSON

. – -. _.

I :
i :

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

. ICONTENTS

”

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE

The Classical Theatre
Its History. Conventions: Colour, Costume, ‘Props’, Music
Character Types, Make-up, Gestures. The Actor. Types of
Plays. The Role of the Classical Drama today.

CHAPTER TWO

The Western Style

Origins, Plays and Playwrights.

CHAPTER THREE

The Yangko Theatre

PAGE

The Chinese Theatre

Tan (female role), to pre-eminence is in itself an expression of the
new position of women in Chinese life.

It would be a great mistake to believe that the days of the
classical drama are over. There will, undoubtedly, be modifica-
tions of its form and content, but as actual practice in the new
urban centres and revolutionary areas of North and Central China,
have shown, the roots of this art are sunk deep in the soul of the
people and are still drawing fresh vitality therefrom.

CHAPTER TWO

THE
WESTERN

STYLE

IN ‘9’ 5 A group of Chinese students who had studied in Japan
-then the nearest centre of ‘Western culture’-and there become
acquainted with modern Western theatrical art, returned to China
and founded the Spring Willow Dramatic Society in Peking, or as
it is now known, Peiping. They were determined to reform the
Chinese theatre. They loudly decried the classical drama which
was the only style of theatre that China at that time knew. They
denounced it as old-fashioned, as feudal. Many of them claimed
that it should be scrapped altogether because it was a brake on
China’s progress. The Spring Willow society aimed to create a
modern Western style theatre for China that would present both
foreign and Chinese plays with a modern outlook. La Dame aux
Camelias and Uncle Tom’s Cabin were two of their first efforts.

As was to be expected, the ‘Western style’ drama found little
favour with the popular masses and was disdained by the old
Mandarin intellectuals as ‘un-Chinese’-a sufficient reason for
complete damnation. The new idea however did take root in the
young intellectual circles of Peiping, Tientsin, Shanghai, Canton
and other university centres. Within the next few years several
other serious amateur modern theatre groups were formed in
these places while one or two of the ‘tea-houses’ and professional
theatres and ‘Coney Island’ entertainment centres of the type of
the ‘New World’ in Shanghai or Peiping exploited the novelty of
‘Western’ staging with ‘thrillers’ or ‘shockers’.

The Chinese Theatre

Though none of the modem plays written at that time show a
serious grasp of modem dramatic technique, they do show tha

they were inspired by an earnest desire for social reform and
intended to make the theatre serve progressive aims while
exploring new artistic forms.

China’s modem students have always been in the van of the
revolution. The students of the first modem universities came
mainly from families of the rising young Chinese bourgeoisie,
middle class groups engaged in industry, commerce or the pro-
fessions, or. from landed aristocratic families who were investing
their wealth in urban occupations. Such students were naturally
attracted to the Western ideas of a realistic drama as opposed to
the mythological and dynastic drama of the traditional classical
stage. This was a natural corollary of their attempts to master
modem Western science and industrial business methods as op-
posed to the unscientific thought of old China and its handicraft-
peasant economy. Just as in politics, the rising young Chinese
bourgeoisie opposed the feudal autocratic monarchy and deman-
ded ~ democratic republic like its Western counterparts, so, in
the field of the theatre (though this cultural revolution came
subsequent to the political revolution in 19II), it opposed the
feudal, Confucian outlook of the classical theatre and strove to
develop its own theatre. Just as it sought to learn and copy the
Western nations in the field of industry and commerce so it sought
to learn from, and copy them, in the field of art. But whereas it
was a comparatively simple matter to import a steam turbine and
make it work in China, drama was a different matter. Plays that
were effective propaganda for good progressive bourgoise ideas
in Britain and America, were found to appeal only to a small
coterie of Westernised intellectuals in China. It was necessary to
develop a modem Chinese repertoire. This is what societies like
the Spring Willow tried to do, with varying degrees of success.

Dr. Hu Shih, Professor Soong Tsung-fang and other bourgeois

48
,\

The h ero ine in ‘Tsai Ting-hua’ by Wu
T su-kwa ng . A Sh ang hai pro du cti on of 193 7

A Manch u P r in ce in ‘ T sai Tin g-hua’

A play of stu dent life pro du ced b y the Lu H sun A rt Academy in Y enan ,
1941 , in th e modern ‘ W estern style’ .

T wo Yan ko players in a Shensi P rov ince v ill ag,e.

I
•

The Western Style

intellectuals in Peiping’s new modern universities did the spade
work of the Literary Revolution. China’s classical plays and belles
lettres up to this time were all written in the Wen Li style, the
literary language, the language of the literati, the scholars. In its
finer forms it was quite incomprehensible to the ordinary public.
To the Chinese man-in-the-street it was often as incomprehen-
sible as the scholiasts’ Latin was to the man-in-the-street of the
European Middle Ages. If a popular, democratic modern liter-
ature was to be written therefore, the first task was to forge a new
literary medium out of the ordinary spoken language-1he Pai
Hua. While the scholars of the Literary Revolution were doing
this they were also making earnest efforts to propagandise the
wholesale reform of the theatre. They demanded that music and
drama should be separated, as in the West, that the Aristotelian
unities of space, time and action should be observed, that realistic
presentation of life should take the place of the idealistic moralities
of the classical theatre, that there should be actresses as well as
actors on the stage, that the theatre building itself should con-
form to the European pattern, and that the conventions of the
classical stage should be exchanged for the conventions of the
Western ‘picture-frame’ stage.

The aims of the innovators, however, far outstripped their
achievements. Some, seeing the difficulties of getting the mass
audience of the common people to break sharply with the old
ways, tried a more oblique approach. They sifted through the
old classical repertoire, disregarded the plays based on superstition
or respect for the imperial house and revived the plays that
contain strong moral and revolutionary implications, plays that
satirise the corrupt mandarins, denounce the tyrants and that laud
the simple virtues of the common man. Some of these experime~
tal theatre groups were endowed by public-spirited rich patrons
from among the modern businessmen.

It must be remembered that throughout this period, from I9II
D ~

The Chinese Theatre

to the present, an active revolutionary struggle has been waged
that sometimes simmered in one or two provinces and sometimes
flared up on a nation-wide scale. As early as 1917 many student
groups developed a vivid and increasingly popular theatre of the
revolution, based on the Western style. They did not attempt
‘big drama’. They were content to present short sketches and
‘living newspapers’. Some were club theatricals but many were
travelling troupes that performed in temples and fait grounds and
in ‘one night stands’ just as did the classical theatre troupes. Their
playlets dealt in simple terms with such evils as opium smoking,
foot binding for women, corruption of officials and cowardice in
face of foreign aggressors. During the agitation against the grow-
ing Japanese aggression, the plays showed the results of Japanese
rule in Korea with the implied warning that a similar fate lay in
store for China unless the people and its leaders showed greater
patriotism and staunchness and self-sacrifice for the common good.
They were direct, hard-hitting and did not hesitate to enlist Grand
Guignol effects to drive home their points. One play had realistic
scenes of Japanese torture-pulling out of nails, beatings and
executions. Not infrequently, as in the clowning interludes of the
classical theatre, local evil-doers and traitors-sellers of Japanese
goods-would be pilloried by means of the stage. These develop-
ments not only spread a knowledge of the realistic drama among
an ever growing audience in town and country, but prepared the
actors and dramatists and other theatre workers for the very con-
siderable achievements of the modem Western style theatre be-
tween 193 I-the date of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and
1937, the date of the full scale Japanese invasion of all China and
the national resistance of the Chinese people.

During this time the intellectuals of the big university cities
developed a mature taste in Western drama. Ibsen had a particu-
larly strong influence on all of them. His Doll’s House especially
has attracted constant attention. Next in importance has been

J
I

J.
l

The Western Style

Anton Chekhov and Ostrovsky. The latter’s Inspector-General is
a perennially popular production with the students and public.
Its rapier thrusts at grasping officials-the traditional butt of
Chinese comedy-have given it all the attraction of forbidden
fruit. Under the Kuomintang dictatorship playwrights did not
dare to make direct attacks on bad officials. When the Inspector-
General was produced however, everyone in the audience knew
that the play really referred to the notoriously corrupt Kuomin-

tang bureaucrats.
Only Eugene O’Neill and Bernard Shaw among Anglo-Ameri-

can playwrights have any considerable influence on Chinese
dramatists. Very few students returned from Western countries
have in fact made any serious contribution to dramatic literature. , ,
All the most significant creative work has been the product of
Chinese who have studied only in China or only partly in Europe,
though all the successful dramatists have a good knowledge of
nineteenth century French, German, Russian and English litera-
ture in translation. Modem Soviet plays are well known.

The most influential of the playwrights in the modem Western
style, and perhaps the most accomplished in point of technique
and mastery of Western dramatic form, is Tsao Yu. His Thunder
and Rain is the story of the breakdown of the old feudal family
relations in modern times, a poignant drama of incest. Sunrise is a
drama of contemporary Shanghai, the tragedy of the Big City.

Yuen Ching is another of the outstanding moderns. His Under
the Eaves of Chungking is a mature production both in form and
content. Hsia Yen, whose Tears of the Yangtte has been voted the
best Chinese film to date, and Wu Tsu-kwang, are more indi-
genous as writers. Wu’s Tsai Ting-hua presents the famous
Peiping prostitute who mediated with the foreign invaders after
the Boxer Rebellion. When it was first produced in Shanghai in
1937 it caused a sensation, though this was perhaps less due to its
intrinsic merit than to the fact that by innuendo and symbolism,

The Chinese Theatre

the playwright succeeded in outwitting the Kuomintang censors
and castigated the spineless officials who were willing to submit
to the Japanese invasion just as the official villains in the play were
willing to submit to the foreign invaders of that time.

My personal opinion, shared by most of the leading critics, is.
that these plays are mature creations that will live on for many
years as good, though not great, plays of their time. They show a
knowledge and feeling for modern life and use the pai hua with a
literary skill that make the efforts of Hu Shih and his colleagues
in the 1920’S seem adolescent. In fact the development of the new
pai hua literature passed out of the hands of Hu Shih and his
group~who linked themselves with the Chiang dictatorship-
into those of the young writers who followed Lu Hsun, leader of
the revolutionary wing of the Literary Renaissance. Lu Hsun, not
only showed how to write in pai hua but taught and encouraged
writers, poets, dramatists, journalists and painters and woodcut
artists in the revolutionary use of the new literary idiom. Incur-
ably ill though he was, he containued his leadership at a time
when scores of progressive intellectuals were being arrested, jailed
or shot out of hand by the dictatorship. The central art school of
the Communist-led Liberated Areas was dedicated to him. It
created the most virile productions in the Western style drama and
used this form most effectively for Resistance Propaganda during
the Japanese invasion. This school and its various Front Service
Corps were tireless innovators. It was in Yenan that in 1938 I saw
the first modem Chinese opera on a modem theme-the creation
of a guerilla unit in occupied territory-in which the words were
in pai hua and the music and general unfolding of the action were
in Western form,

Thus by the early 1940’S the Western style theatre had a small
repertoire of Chinese plays of consequence. It also had a larger
number of good translations from the foreign theatre. Actors and
producers have shown a remarkable talent in the Western genres.

”

l
r.

1
[
,

t
The Western Style

Productions of Shakespeare, Moliere, Gogol, Ostrovsky or Ibsen
are comparable to the finest in the West. Up to the outbreak of the
Japanese invasion in 1937, however, the Western style theatre
remained almost wholly an urban form of entertainment, and even
there it was limited still to the intellectuals and small upper middle
class groups.

During the period of the Japanese invasion, however, the West-
ern style groups developed their activities on a considerable scale
to reinforce the defence propaganda work of all other cultural
groups. This was particularly the case during the early period of
the war when all the political parties were united in a national
front against the invader. In 1940, the third year of the war, there
were as many as 2,500 dramatic propaganda groups with a total of
60,000 members-actors, playwrights, musicians, artists, pro-
ducers. They were organised by the veteran writer Kuo Mo-jo,
and by Tien Han, a nationally known figure in the world of the
theatre. Most of these groups were attached to various army units
and lived on soldiers’ pay with the honorary ranks of majors or
sergeants. Performances usually included concert turns, sketches
and full length plays. In some ways this was a time of dramatic
growth though there was little time for serious dramatic quests.
The people in their tens of thousands were brought a first-hand
knowledge of new art forms, and the intellectuals were brought
into closer contact with the people than ever before. Scholars learnt
to appreciate anew the riches of folk art-the ballad, the song, the
recitation and the dance, Many incorporated their finds in sketches,
plays and musical and dance compositions. The intellectuals and
the theatre emerged from the war spiritually enriched.

The Western style drama has come to stay in China. It is a pro-
duct of middle class Chinese urban culture and that culture will
only develop to the full in the coming period. Hitherto the pro-
gressive middle class theatre has had more than ordinary difficul-
ties to contend with. First it had to make its way against the com-

T he Chinese T heatre

plete theatrical monopoly of the imperial feudal culture and its cla ssi~
cal theatre. Then, when the last dynasty was overthrown in 1911)
it had to battle in an unequal struggle not only against the ideologi-
cal resistance of the old culture, but against the persecution of the
new dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek and his allied war lords and
fascist groups which used every means at their command to combat
democratic and progressive ideas. This resulted in severe pressure
against the modern Western style theatre for, as I have already
suggested in discussing the classical theatre, Chinese cultural tra-
dition has always regarded the theatre not only as a place of
entertainment, but primarily as a place of instruction. Thus there
has never been any serious argument in Chinese intellectual
circles about the necessity or even the desirability of ‘art for art’s
sake’. As Hsia Yen, one of the four leading contemporary drama-
tists, writes: ‘The overwhelming majority of modern Chinese
dramatists have consciously used their plays as a means to advance
social reform’.

r
1
r.

I
CHAPTER THREE

THE
YANGKO
THEATRE

A STUDY OF THE Chinese Yangko Theatre is a study of the
development of a modern theatrical art form out of a primitive
folk art within the space of the last few years. In I938-ten years
ago-Yangko dancing was a folk art curiosity in North-west
China’s Shensi Province. Today it has spread in its modern form
of Yangko drama dealing with the most complex contemporary
subjects, all over North and North-east China. In the wake of the
revolutionary People’s Armies it is conquering the imaginations
of the people of Central China. In parts of Shensi-notably the
famous Yenan Border Region on the verges of Shensi, Kansu
and Ninghsia-one out of every twelve people enjoy the pleasures
of a Yangko dance as a regular feature of their life.

Shensi Province is bounded by the great U-shaped bend of the
Yellow River. It is one of the cradles of Chinese civilisation and
therefore one of the sources of the classical Chinese theatre. Down
to this day you can find here survivals of the primitive folk rituals
from which the classical theatre sprang .. Such a survival is the
original Yangko. It is a folk song and dance performed at the
time of field labour; a fertility rite danced by youths and maidens.
As performed in the recent past it was a group dance with some
twenty or thirty dancers to a group. The leader held an open um-
brella or a metal rod and he sang the theme of the play while the
chorus chanted in answer. Male and female dancers faced each
other in opposite lines. In later days, however, the female parts

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that another $37,500 of repair work is required. Alternatively, it has found a newer used lift that is for sale for $160,000. The
company estimates that both lifts would have useful lives of 5 years. The new lift is more ef�cient and thus would reduce
operating expenses from $101,000 to $77,000 each year. Wildhorse Roo�ng could also rent out the new lift for about $9,500 per
year. The old lift is not suitable for rental. The old lift could currently be sold for $23,500 if the new lift is purchased. The new lift
and old lift are estimated to have salvage values of zero if used for another 6 years.

Prepare an incremental analysis showing whether the company should repair or replace the equipment. (Enter negative amounts
using either a negative sign preceding the number e.g. -45 or parentheses e.g. (45).)

Retain
Equipment

Replace
Equipment

Net Income
Increase (Decrease)

Operating expenses $ $ $

Repair costs

Rental revenue

New machine cost

221 HW5 Ch 22 Ch 23

Question 10 of 10 – / 1

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Sale of old machine

Total cost $ $ $

Should company repair or replace the equipment?

The equipment be replaced.

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221 HW5 Ch 22 Ch 23

Question 10 of 10 – / 1

MEDIEVAL

JAPAN
Heiankyo = Kyoto

Edo = Tokyo

0 CJ

Fig 1 Some important locations in medieval Japan

THE TRADITIONAL THEATRE OF JAPAN
Kyogen, Noh, Kabuki, and Puppetry

John Wesley Harris

;911,.1;,1;r-l
The Edwi~ Kf ellen Press

Lewiston-Queenston-Larnpeter

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Harris, John Wesley.
The traditional theatre of Japan : kyogen, noh, kabuki and puppetry/ John Wesley Harris.

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7734-5798-4
I. Performing arts–Japan–History. l. Title.

PN292 I .H366 2006
79 I .0952–dc22

20060419

hors serie.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

The Edwin Mellen Press
Box 4

Lewiston, New York
USA 14092-0450

The Edwin Mellen Press
Box 67

Queenston, Ontario
CANADA LOS !LO

The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd.
Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales

UNITED KINGDOM SA48 SL T

Printed in the United States of America

CHAPTER3

Kyogen – the early farces

The earliest type of drama to develop in Japan was probably the kyogen play.

This seems to have grown out of the primitive farces found in a kind of general

variety show called ‘infonnal music’ (sangaku in Japanese) which was introduced

into the islands from Korea in the early eighth century. Sangaku contained songs,

dances, tumbling,juggling, acrobatics and conjuring tricks, but in amongst the other

turns were pieces that involved simple acting, and these seem likely to have been

the source of both the comic kyogen and the serious noh play.

The Japanese, like the Chinese and Koreans, distinguished two different

kinds of ‘informal music’, namely ‘field music’ and ‘monkey music’ (in Japanese,

dengaku and sarugaku). It is thought that the latter of these acquired its name
because it involved monkey-like mimicry. The ‘field music’ (dengaku) contained
many very old songs and dances, including important ritual dances to bring good

weather and help the rice crops grow, and these were usually performed by Shinto

priests at sites in the countryside. The ‘monkey-music’ (sarugaku), on the other
hand, was performed by professional actors and contained songs and dances that

were calculated to entertain people in the towns. For instance, by the eleventh

century the sarugaku actors were beginning to present farces with titles like The
Tricks of a Lad from the Capital, A Peasant goes up to see the Big City, A Nun
goes looking for Baby-clothes, and so on – titles that suggest the exploitation of

innocent holy folk and ignorant country-bumpkins by cunning city lads.

The word ‘kyogen’ was borrowed by the Japanese from Chinese, where it

originally meant ‘nonsense’ or ‘crazy irresponsible utterances.’ Later, the famous

Chinese poet Po Chii-i used the phrase ‘kyogen kigo ‘ to mean fancy words that

drew people away from Buddha’s teachings,1 and the word came to mean a

fabrication or fiction which had a morally negative effect. This is shown by the

legend that Lady Murasaki, the famous authoress of The Tale of Genji (Genji

Monogatari), went to hell after she died, because she had committed the sin of

kyogen kigo or writing fiction.

By the late 14th century we find the term ‘kyogen’ being applied to plays in

general and, if the same interpretation of the worJ applied, it must have meant that

at that time any drama was regarded as an anti-religious act of pretence calculated

to delude and corrupt the heart of man – an attitude that would tie in very well

with the vow taken by some Buddhist priests not to sing, dance or witness plays.

However, since that particular vow applied to only a few sects, and most

monasteries were only too happy to present plays on festival days, it is no

surprise that the stigma attaching to the name ‘kyogen’ soon faded away.

The Shinto legend of Uzume performing her suggestive dance to lure

Amaterasu out of the Cave of Heaven suggests that the original tradition of

sarugaku was a comic one, and that it was probably associated with the

celebration of fertility. The first reference we have seems to confirm this, because

it relates to a festival sometime in the late eleventh century at which Uzume’s

sacred kagura dance was due to be performed. On the occasion in question, the

current Emperor, Horikawa, sent for his Counsellor and told him to make sure that

the sarugaku that he selected to follow the kagura in the evening was ‘something

really remarkable’. The Counsellor therefore proposed to his younger brother that

they should both hitch up their robes to show their bare legs in the bright light of

the courtyard fire, and dance round the flames singing:

‘Later and later grows the night,

Keener and keener grows the cold.

I will lift up my petticoats

And warm my backside at the fire. ‘

This was obviously intended as a deliberately indecent performance that
would aesthetically reflect the spirit of the kagura earlier in the day, by mimicking
Uzume’s dance, but when it came to the test, the Counsellor lost his nerve. His
younger brother, though, was more daring, and went and danced twelve or thirteen
times around the fire, singing, and warming his bare legs ‘just as though he had

really been cold … causing a tremendous uproar.’ 2
Despite the admirable irreverence shown in this performance, the sarugaku

must already have been developing a serious side, because in the Kamakura period
(I I 85-1336) it split into two separate branches known as ‘the basic art’ (hongei)
and ‘the skilled art’ (nohgei). The ‘basic art’ kept sarugaku’s original humour, and
after mingling with ‘field music’ (dengaku), finally emerged as kyogen. The
‘skilled art’, which placed emphasis on song and dance, and took tragic themes
from history and legend as its subject-matter, eventually developed into noh.

Perhaps because it was a simpler type of drama, kyogen seems to have
achieved an accepted theatrical form earlier than its more famous cousin. This is
indicated by the fact that the priest Genei (1269-1350), who is said to be kyogen’s
first playwright and who wrote many of the plays in the present repertory, died
before Kan’arni and Zeami, the begetters of modem noh, had even begun their
work on the more serious form of drama.

Kyogen and noh not only spring from the same source but they seem to
counterbalan~e each other. Manzo Nomura, a famous kyogen master, writes:

‘The highly refined tastes of the medieval audiences demanded an organic

separation of the miscellaneous aspects of sarugaku into music and dance on the
one hand and mime and humour on the other, resulting in the birth of the twin arts
of noh and kyogen. These two twins were clothed in garments whose colours were
as sharply contrasted as red and white, covering their differing skeletal structures
of symbolism and simplicity in such a way that they could never again be
mistaken for one another. But when the yin personality of the noh and the yang
personality of the kyogen are placed side by side, the effect of mutual reflection

produces an especially pleasing harmony.’ 3

This ‘pleasing harmony’ of the two forms was achieved by kyogen farces

being introduced into progranunes of noh plays in order to provide moments of

relief from the extremely high tension and emotion that the more serious pieces

generated, and the practice of playing the two forms of drama side by side has

continued ever since. Professional kyogen players are also usually attached to

companies of noh actors as a kind of subsidiary branch, and they have a narrative

function in many noh plays which is different to their usual farcical contributions –

indeed in the noh their roles are often completely serious.f

The Okina play

There is an interesting survival which shows how close kyogen and noh were in

the formative period of Japanese drama. When a full programme of five noh plays

(goban) is produced with its accompanying kyogen farces – something that rarely

happens today – it has always been the custom to precede the performance by an

ancient ritual play called Okina in which the shite (pronounced ‘shtay’ – the

principal dancer) takes on the nature of the god Okina. The ritual consists of three

dances. First, there is the stately dance of a young man called Senzai, which

involves special patterns of stamping that bring to mind both the presence of the

earth itself and also Shinto rituals for the invocation of a god. During the young

man’s dance there comes a moment when the noh actor playing Okina, who has

been sitting to one side of the stage, dons the white mask of a good-humoured old

man that represents the god. This is the only occasion in noh where a mask is

visibly donned on stage, and the action symbolises the descent of the god into the

performer. Okina now dances a god dance (kamigaku) with great calm and

deliberation and, when he has finished, a kyogen actor in a black mask, playing a

character called Sambaso, performs a lively dance with much leaping, and

stamping, and shaking of bells, the actions of which suggest both various kinds of

fanning work and also the process of dispelling demons.

The structure of this performance corresponds to the three stages of an

ancient Shinto ritual called shiki samba and the piece, which is considered
exceptionally lucky, is intended to bring a blessing upon all the actors and their
endeavours as well as upon the audience. It is treated as a sacred event and all the
participants have to eat in isolation from their families for several days before they
undertake the performance, and devote themselves to rituals of purification. The
Shinto associations of the dance suggest that it is extremely old and probably dates

from a time when kyogen and noh were only just beginning to diverge.5

The benevolent nature of kyogen

Kyogen deals with everyday human relationships, involving husbands and wives,
masters and servants, the rituals of courtship, hypocritical priests, and the con-
men of the market-place and their victims. There are also a few plays about gods
and demons, but even these superhuman beings are treated in a very domestic and
good-humoured way. Altogether it is a very simple and basic type of drama with a
kindly and undemanding approach to life, in which every character, whatever their
rank, tends to think and react like one of the common people.

For many generations, the plays were preserved and handed down in the
form of scenarios, and the dialogue and movement were improvised by the

performers.sA typical example of such a scenario is the one called An Umbrella

Instead of a Fan taken from the oldest collection of scenarios in existence today,
The Tembo Kyogen Book, which was compiled during the 1570s. It runs:

‘A Daimyo appears and calls his servant. He tells the servant to go to the
capital and buy the most expensive fan he can find. The servant goes to the capital
and begins shouting out what he wants to buy. A Con-man appears and sells him
an umbrella instead. The Con-man also tells him that if his master gets angry with
him, he should sing the song: “On Umbrella Mountain, on Umbrella Mountain, if
other people open their umbrellas, I shall open my umbrella too.” The servant
goes home. When the Master sees what the Servant has bought, he gets angry. He

—-=–=-=:==;=..-========’—v .

chases the Servant out of the house. Then the Servant begins singing and dancing.

The Master listens and enjoys the song so much that he begins dancing too.

Master and Servant dance together. The play ends with a passage from the flute.’

The Tembo Kyogen Book contains 104 different scenarios but, as generations

went by, the repertory grew larger, plots and dialogue became fixed, and more and

more complete scripts began to appear. There are now more than thirty volumes

of complete scripts owned by the various scr.ools that play kyogen, containing

different versions of 260 plays. For convenience, these pieces have been divided

by the actors into several categories, most of which are named after the type of

character who plays the principal shite role, although a few of them are named
after the overall theme of the piece.

Particularly revealing of kyogen’s approach to the presentation of life are

the pieces about daimyos. These characters are usually introduced as ‘The well-

known daimyo so-and-so,’ and they place great stress on their exalted social

position and behave with a level of arrogance that they believe to be suitable for

their rank, but they soon reveal that underneath all the external show they are

simple-minded, childish, illiterate and thoughtless. Consequently the ridiculous

situations they become involved in are generally of their own making.

Needless to say, these pompous simpletons are nothing like the great clan

chiefs at the time when the plays were devised, or even the rural village lords of

the same period, and the audience tends to see them primarily as kind-hearted

idiots. This means that however much the actor sent-up the part, he was unlikely

to offend any of the daimyos and samurai who were actually watching the play,
which was very important for the actor.

As can be seen from this example, the genre may sometimes be satirical, but

it is never aggressively critical or unpleasantly malicious. It prefers to observe and

display human behaviour as it finds it and interpret it in the kindest way that it

can. All its characters arc simple and essentially kind-hearted, and all of them act

in a way which is easily understood by the common people, and yet usually

shows how people ought to behave in awkward situations.

Son-in-law pieces

This is well illustrated by the politeness of the father in a piece called The Rooster
Son-in-Law. This is one ofa group of plays called ‘son-in-law’ pieces which relate
to mistakes that occur on the first ceremonial visit of the groom to the house of his
father-in-law – a medieval custom which took place in arranged marriages after the
contract had been signed, but before the groom had seen his bride. The groom, who
is the main character, always appears dressed as a samurai, and announces himself
nervously in a serious voice: ‘I am a new groom, the joy of my father-in-law’. He
brings gifts of food and wine, which give the piece a celebratory note, but the
important thing is the ridiculous mistakes and confusions which arise because he is
completely ignorant of the proper way in which to behave during the ceremony. In
these pieces the secondary roles (ado) consist of fathers-in-law, wives and friends,

who teach him what he ought to do – often quite wrongly.
In The Rooster Son-in-Law the groom is well aware that he does not know

the necessary protocol for the visit and pays a call upon his old schoolmaster to
find out what he should do. The schoolmaster is irritated by the young man’s lack
of imagination and decides to make a laughing stock of him. He therefore tells him
that he should follow the ‘visiting rooster protocol’, and act like a cockerel, and he
lends him a tall black hat that looks like a cockscomb. As a result when he visits
his father-in-law the young man concludes every speech by opening his fan,
waving both his arms vigorously, scratching with his feet and crowing like a cock.
The father-in-law and his servant, Taro Kaja, cannot understand this behaviour at
all, but at last the father-in-law rightly decides that somebody is trying to make a
fool of the young man. However, since the disgrace of his son-in-law would be
bound to reflect upon him, and also out of an essentially Confucian politeness, he
decides that he must imitate what the young man does in every way. So, getting
Taro Kaja to swear not to laugh, he sends him off for a matching hat, and the play
ends with the son-in-law and father-in-law exchanging compliments, and both of
them flapping their arms, scratching their feet, and crowing like mad.

—— ~=======::!;,-‘· V

Taro Kaja pieces

The father-in-law’s servant Taro Kaja is a famous kyogen character, who has a

whole category of plays named after him, in which he takes the leading actor’s

role, and there are also many plays in which he takes the part of a supporting

actor who merely runs errands for his master or acts as an intermediary between

him and whoever he is talking to. He is. considered the most typical of all kyogen

characters, and this is underlined by his name. ‘Taro’ is a very common name for a

man in Japan, and ‘Kaja’ means a boy who has just celebrated his coming of age,

so the name implies a lively young servant, who is a bit of a rogue and will have

popular appeal – a kind of ‘Jack the Lad’, References in the plays suggest that he

lives in poor lodgings in the middle of Kyoto. In one play he says, ‘My house is

such a run-down hovel that whenever it rains three drops outside, we get ten

drops inside – so my wife and children have to huddle in the corners to keep dry’.

In ways like this, despite his self-assurance, he clearly reveals that he represents

the poorer classes of the city. His master, who is the supporting character in these

plays, is usualJy a small landowner who is quite poor and most of the plays, like

An Umbrella Instead of a Fan, involve Taro Kaja being sent off to buy something,

getting swindled, and coming back with the wrong article, which makes his master

very angry. In the end Taro Kaja usually manages to get round him in one way or
another – but this is not always the case.

A good example of a Taro Kaja play is The Ring of Bells in which his master,

in this case a wealthy man, declares that he intends to present his son with a

sword at his coming-of-age ceremony and that he intends to inlay it with gold. He

sends Taro Kaja off into the town ofKamakura to find the cheapest gold that he

can, and, because gold was assessed by the way it sounded when it was struck, he

uses the slang term ‘the ring of metal’ (kane none) to mean ‘the price of metal’.

Taro Kaja of course misinterprets this in its more usual sense of ‘the sound of a

bell’ and without questioning the order for a moment, goes off to town to find his

master the best-sounding bell that he can. After arriving he goes to listen to the

bells of four temples, each represented by one of the comers of the stage. He
creates the sounds that he hears for the audience, of course, and decides that the
bell of the Kencho Temple is best. He then returns to his master, and describes the
sound of each of the bells, steadily making him more and more angry. Eventually
when he finds out that Taro Kaja has not brought him any information at all about
the price of gold, his master chases him out of the house. Realising he has made a
mistake, Taro Kaja decides that, because his master is cultured, the way to get
round him is to make up a song and dance about his experiences in the town, but
this time it does not work and the master comes out and drives him away.

In fact, Taro Kaja is usually chased away or scolded at the end of the pieces
in which he appears, because he has either got his orders confused, or tried to bluff
his way out of a situation in which he has been very cowardly, or caused an
uproar after stealing sake from his master’s storehouse and getting hopelessly
drunk – but however unreliable he may be, he is basically a kind-hearted young
man who is never malicious, nor does his master ever treat him harshly. Indeed,
there are a number of plays where Taro Kaja shows great love and respect for his
master, and some where he even takes a scolding for mistakes that his master has

made.
Sometimes he is accompanied by a second servant named Jiro Kaja who is

subordinate to him, and the two of them often combine their forces to achieve
some mutual objective. For instance, in the piece called Tied to a Stick, where their
master ties the two of them to the opposite ends of a pole so that they cannot get
at his sake while he is away, they work together to move the jug into a position
where they can each get hold of it and take a swig in tum.

Sentimentality in kyogen

Some kyogen pieces can become quite sentimental. For instance there is a
‘daimyo’ play called The Monkey-Skin Quiver. In this case the lord is a ‘famous
hunter’ travelling with his servant. On the road they meet a monkey-trainer and

– _.. _ ,—~·

his monkey. They fall into conversation and the trainer tells the lord that the

monkey can perform tricks. The lord notes what fine fur it has and begs the trainer

to grant him a request, getting the man to swear that he will grant it before he tells

him what he wants. The trainer agrees, somewhat unwillingly, and the lord then

tells him that he would like the monkey’s skin to make a cover for his quiver.

Because he has promised the lord to give him what he wants, the trainer tries to

bring himself to kill the monkey, but he cannot do it, and finally breaks down. He

tearfully tells the lord’s servant (Taro Kaja) about all the care he has lavished on

the animal since it was a tiny baby. The lord overhears him and is moved to spare

the monkey’s life. The trainer is so happy about this that he insists on getting the

monkey to thank the lord and his servant, by bowing to them. He then gets it to

perform a celebratory dance in accompaniment to a song he sings, and the lord is

so impressed that he first gives the monkey his fan, then his sword, and finally his

cloak and his long over-trousers. At the end of the dance the trainer gets the

monkey to look at the moon while shading his eyes with his hand and the lord is

so amused that he imitates him. The trainer then gets the monkey to shade his

eyes with the other hand, and the lord does the same. Finally he gives the monkey

a sacred Shinto scroll to wave, and the lord imitates him using his quiver. Finally,

at the end of the dance, the lord and the monkey both strike a happy pose each
with one knee on the ground.

The daimyo’s change of heart in this play is typical of the sentimentality

that is often found in his character, and the play as a whole is very typical of the
benevolent spirit of the kyogen,

Stupidity in kyogcn

Sometimes the characters lose out in kyogen because they behave in a very stupid

manner. One of the ‘farmer’ plays, called The Foxes of Sado, illustrates this well.
In the kyogen, unlike real life, farmers are always happy and satisfied, and the first

farmer always begins with the words: ‘In this happy age of ours when the whole

world is at peace .. .’ The shape of the plays is always the same. A farmer from one
part of the country meets a farmer from another part of the country. Both of them
are on their way to the capital to pay their annual taxes. When they reach the
mansion of the tax-collector, they are usually asked to perform for him, and most
of the pieces end with a cheerful dance, or a song, or a good laugh, or a lively tune

on the flute, to underline their celebratory nature.
In the case of The Foxes of Sada, a farmer from Echido meets a farmer from

the small island of Sado just off the coast and, when they start to discuss what
disadvantages the island of Sado might have, the Sado farmer boldly claims that
they have everything there that the mainland has. ‘Foxes too?’ asks the Echido
farmer. ‘Yes. foxes too’ says the Sado farmer after a moment’s thought. Now at
the time the play was devised it was believed that there were no foxes on Sudo, so
the Echido farmer challenges the Sudo farmer to make a bet on it. They agree to bet
their swords, which would be very valuable from a farmer’s viewpoint, and decide

that the tax-collector shall settle the bet.
We next see the Sado farmer asking the rather disgruntled tax-collector to

help him. After slipping him a bribe under his sleeve he asks, ‘Are there foxes in
Sado?’ ‘No’ says the tax-collector. ‘What should I do, then?’ says the farmer,
‘I’ve taken a bet that there are.’ At this the tax-collector takes pity on him and
describes a fox – smaller than a dog, slanty eyes, a grinning mouth, a Jong bushy
tail, and light red in colour. Using this information the Sado farmer answers all the
Echido farmer’s questions and seems to have won the bet, but as he is carrying off
the swords the Echido farmer stops him and insists that he answers just one more
question: ‘What kind of sound does a fox make?’ ‘Smaller than a dog?’ suggests
the Sado farmer and then he inappropriately goes through the complete list of
descriptive features he has just learnt from the tax-collector, greatly increasing his
interrogator’s suspicions. Finally, when he finds that none of them is right, he is
completely at a loss and says ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’. At that the Echido farmer
immediately claims the two swords and carries them off with the complaining

Sado farmer in hot pursuit.

Presumption and hypocrisy in kyogcn

Then there are plays dealing with presumption and hypocrisy, most of which are
associated with priests. In fact, plays involving priests are almost as numerous as
those dealing with Taro Kaja. This is probably because the Kamakura and
Muromachi periods (1185-1573), when kyogen was taking on its modem form,
witnessed the introduction of several new Buddhist sects and a growth of interest
in all sorts of faiths and philosophies.· At the same time it was a period of great
social insecurity and confusion and these unstable conditions produced many
‘false priests’, who were basically confidence tricksters who travelled round the
country in priestly robes begging for their living, either because their business had
failed or because they needed to escape from some other unpleasant situation. As
a result, priests are usually satirised when they appear in kyogen.

For instance, there are plays about the yamabushi or warrior priests
mentioned earlier. These semi-Shinto, semi-Buddhist ascetics spent long periods in
prayer deep in the mountains, but at other times they would travel about the
countryside, ‘helping’ the local peasantry by chanting what they believed to be
potent incantations. Kyogen plays present them as very egotistical men, dressed
in pompous costumes, who cast magic spells, and make grandiloquent claims
about their powers, but when it comes to the point of proving what they can do,
they usually fail and become the object of taunts and sarcasm. For instance, in The
Hooting Warrior Priest the characters all become possessed by the spirit of an
owl, because once the yamabushi priest has aroused the mischievous spirit, to take
possession of a younger brother, it also takes over his older brother, and finally
the priest himself, and they all go off together hooting merrily.

In another piece of this kind, called Mushrooms, the priest starts the
mushrooms growing and then cannot stop them. Don Kenny tells us that when
this piece was performed in the United States, the mushroom spirits, with their
flat round straw hats, which appeared first through the curtain and eventually
through an upper sliding-door as well, led Americans to think that the play was a

satire on the war in Viet Nam. They saw the yamabushi priest as representing

America and the mushrooms the Viet Cong – an interpretation which would

certainly never have occurred to any Japanese.

Other types of priest are usually attacked for greed and hypocrisy, just as

they were in many western plays of the middle ages. For instance, there is a priest

in A Sermon Without A Donation who is absolutely determined to get his regular
donation out of a parishioner who has forgotten to present it to him. He visits the

parishioner frequently, hoping that this will remind him of his lapse of memory,

and then, when the parishioner finally realises why he is paying him so many

visits and actually offers him the donation, he pretends to refuse it and has to be

persuaded to take it, thus showing that he is nothing but a hypocrite.

In a rather different vein, there is a piece called A Religious Dispute, in which
two priests of different sects have a ridiculous argument about the way in which

Buddha should be described, until they finally realise that whatever adjectives you

add to his name, Buddha always remains one and the same. This play provides a

sharp criticism not only of petty religious disputes but of all forms of narrow-

minded sectarianism.

Lustful priests also make an appearance in one or two of the plays, but the

subject is treated lightly, and most of them are young novices who have only just

taken their vows and still find it very difficult to ignore attractive young women.

Their advances are invariably unsuccessful and often involve them in getting

drenched with a bucketful of water, or suffering some other misadventure that

points the moral in an equally harmless way.

Kindly demons

Some plays of the Muromachi period clearly reflected the views of one or other of

the recently introduced sects. For instance, despite the fact that hell played a very

important part in some forms of popular Buddhism, demons in kyogen are on the

whole presented as weak and ineffectual and only too happy to let their victims

off the hook. This ridiculing of the idea of damnation can be seen as a by-product

of the teaching of the Pure Land (Jodo) sect that all true believers would go to

paradise – a promise that rendered hell an inconsiderable factor in the eyes of its
followers.

A ‘demon’ play which gives a good impression of these hopelessly

inefficient devils and the benevolent atmosphere of the plays in which they appear

is The Bird Catcher in Hell, which also happens to be a direct parody of a certain
kind of noh play.

It starts with Emma, the King of Hell, patrolling the ‘six ways’ of the

underworld with his demons, waiting to catch the souls of the wicked. Then along

comes the soul of a bird-catcher. A minor demon sees him first and asks him what

his job was on earth. When he tells the demon that he was a bird-catcher, the

demon says that since he has been constantly involved in taking life, against

Buddha’s law, he must go to hell. The bird-catcher objects that he doesn’t think

he’s bad at all, and that he’d much rather go to heaven.

The demon refers the matter to Emma, who reaffirms that since the bird-

catcher took life in his earthly incarnation he must go to hell. However, the bird-

catcher argues that he did not personally kill the birds he caught, but sold them to

gentlemen, who fed them to their falcons, so their deaths were ultimately the

falcons’ fault and not his. Emma agrees that there was nothing wrong with such a
course of action.

He then has a sudden craving to taste the birds that are continually flying

around him on the Hill of Death and asks the bird-catcher to snare him some. This

he docs and, after he has roasted them, Emma finds them very tasty. The bird-

catcher offers them to the other demons as well, who eagerly snatch them and also
enjoy them thoroughly.

Emma then declares that the bird-catcher has given them all such a treat he is

going to send him back to earth to go on catching birds for another three years, and

the chorus wind up the play by telling the audience that Emma not only sent him

back to earth, but presented him with a jewelled crown as well.

·-~

Women in kyogcn

Women often appear in kyogen, although they are played by male actors, of

course, as in all Japanese traditional drama. Plays of this kind usually deal with the

relationship between married couples and though the women arc relegated to

supporting roles they always leave a strong impression. A description of the type

of action in some of these plays will give a flavour of the whole category. In
Caught in a Sack, a man divorces his wife but tells her she can put anything she
likes into a sack and take it away with her, so she throws the sack over his head

and drags him away. In The Mirror, a man buys a mirror in the city for his wife,
but she has never seen one before, and when she looks into it she thinks he has

brought home another woman and they fall out about it. In The Drunken Wife, a
husband decides to divorce his wife, who is a drunkard, and go to the temple to

pray for a new one but she follows him there in a veil and pretends to be the new

wife the gods are providing for him. She drinks so much, however, that the

husband becomes concerned and snatches away her veil to see her face. Finding it

is his own wife he becomes very submissive and she berates him, stamping

repeatedly and shouting ‘How angry I am! How angry I am!’

Kyogen women are often described as ‘noisy’ because of their tendency to

shout when they catch their husbands out but they are all of them much stouter of

heart and sturdier of intellect than their spouses. In An Unsuccessful Suicide with a
Sickle, the wife threatens her spineless and suicidal husband with his own sickle
until he agrees to go off to the mountain and do some work after all. In Cautious
Bravery, she vigorously encourages her husband, who is a complete coward, to
take revenge on his so-called ‘friends’ who have kicked and trampled on him. In

Visiting Hanago, where he pretends to be spending time in Zen meditation so that
he can slip away to see his mistress Hanago, she is quick to sense his

unfaithfulness, takes the place of the servant he has left ‘meditating’ for him under

a cloak, and gives him a thorough scolding when he comes back and ‘unveils’ her.

In The Trial Rehearsal, she is the one who has been unfaithful but she manages

.———– – ~/-~

to bluff her husband literally out of his senses and in A Demon in Love, a demon,
who ought to know better, gets involved with a woman and is humorously tricked

and unceremoniously chased away.

The celebratory nature of kyogen

All kyogen plays are optimistic and have a ‘fortunate’ aspect to them, through

showing instances of either good luck, reconciliation, forgiveness, happiness, or

wealth – or through presenting kindly Shinto gods like Daikoku with his magic

hammer, Ebisu with his sea bream and fishing-rod, Bishamon, dressed in his

armour and helmet and carrying a halberd, or Fuku, the God of Happiness,

himself When each god appears, he explains why he is auspicious, tells the story

of his origins, and bestows blessings on all the people. In kyogen masters are kind

and servants are well-meaning, even if they are subject to temptation, while the

song and dance which is used by the servant to get himself back into his master’s

good graces after misbehaving himself or making a silly mistake, provides an extra

note of celebration, which is reinforced by the fact that his master often dances

with him. In the god plays these final dances are even performed to the

accompaniment of the four-piece orchestra which is found on the noh stage and

the chanting of a chorus, which makes them much more impressive. In fact,

kyogen always seeks to raise the spirits of its audience, in the tradition ofUzume,

and send them away from the theatre with feelings of optimism and kindness.

The staging and acting of kyogen

Although kyogen has for centuries been played on the same stage as the noh drama

(see Figs 3 and 4) for which, as was explained earlier, it serves as a kind of comic

counterpoint, there is no indication that it was originally performed on anything

but a simple platform stage, though probably it was a roofed stage in the open air,

like the kagura-den used for Uzume’s sacred dance.” Indeed kyogen acting often

breaks the noh conventions, as happens in The Ring of Bells where the actor
playing Taro Kaja uses all four corners of the stage to represent different temples

in the town. whereas, according to noh practice, the corner upstage right, from the

audience’s viewpoint, is a ‘dead’ area so far as acting is concerned – but it is only

natural that, having extra facilities available, the kyogen actor will use them. This is

demonstrated again in the performance of The Half Delivered Gift, where the entire
length of the entry ‘bridge’ (hashigakari) leading offstage to the audience’s left,
together with the full width of the stage, is used to represent a snowy mountain

track up which Taro Kaja drives a herd of imaginary cows in a highly convincing

manner using nothing but a stick to aid him. In noh, such a journey would have

been represented more simply by a ‘circular’ motion around the stage itself,

accompanied by a descriptive chant.

Vocally, kyogen actors use patterns of chant which are similar to those of

noh, although they are much less elaborate, and, like noh performers, they do not

change their voices very much to characterise any kind of role. However, despite

their frequent use of dialect words, most of what they say can easily be

understood by a modern audience, unlike the more ‘antique’ speeches of the noh.

The language also contains humorous elements that could never arise in noh,

amongst them the onomatopoeic words the actor uses to provide ‘sound effects’,

a technique which seems to be unique to kyogen. When opening a heavy door, for

instance, the actor vocalises the creaking sound as gara-gara-gara: when using a

saw, it is zoka-zoka-zoka: when pouring sake out of a jug it is dobu-dobu-dobu:

when ‘pouring out the last few drops of sake from the same jug it is p’s ‘to-p’s ‘to-
p’s ‘to: and when playing the shamisen, it is tereten-tereten-tereten. A particularly
effective example of this vocal technique are the sounds used for the bells of

Kamakura in The Sound of Bells. According to Taro Kaja, the bell of the Jufuku
Temple goes jan-mon -mon-mon, just an average bell; the bell of the Enkaku

Temple is pecan-pecan – a very thin-sounding bell; the bell of the Gokurako
Temple is jaga-jaga-jaga – a broken bell; and the bell of the Kencho Temple is

kon-mon-mon-mon by far the best sound of the four.

It is often suggested that while noh is a theatre of music and dance, kyogen

is mainly a drama of words and conversation, but it is really only a matter of

degree. There is no doubt that kyogen began as a ‘song and dance’ form. There is

even a small group of ‘dance’ pieces (mai kyogen) which take the same dramatic
form as the ‘noh of ghosts’ where a travelling priest prays for a restless spirit and

raises it to dance and sing and re-tell its story of the days long ago. There are only

seven such pieces, but one of them, Rakuami, the Flute Playing Priest, is probably
the earliest example of kyogen we have and dates back to some period before the

middle ages. There is also a large group of songs which are drawn upon randomly

to accompany the drinking-party scenes that often appear in the plays and their

name, koruri otai (‘small dance songs’), implies they are all meant to accompany
dances. Some kyogen pieces, like Spring, Girls, and Sake, are highly lyrical and
made up almost entirely of sequences drawn from these songs and dances. In other

pieces a song is often used to state the theme or to stress a few important phrases

or lines and a good melody can make even an essentially indecent and vulgar offer

of love sound quite acceptable, as happens in A Demon in Love and Visiting
Hanago. So it is not surprising that, upon close examination, even the most
‘realistic’ kyogen gestures and vocal modulations can be clearly seen to derive

from the singing and dancing techniques that are hammered into the young actor
during his training.

Kyogen uses mostly simple hand properties, but it uses a much wider range

of them than the noh, including swords, hand bells, Buddhist rosaries, pilgrims’

staffs, shovels, hoes, sickles, barrels, gourds, chopping boards, butchers’ knives,

and many other objects which were related to the daily life of the common people.

However, there are two properties which are used symbolically to represent many

other articles – these are the fan and a two-foot-high cylindrical black-lacquered

box with a lid called a kazora-oke. The closed fan can be used to represent a whip,
hammer, saw, knife, lance, halberd, sword or bow – and even a hand-drill in one

play – and when it is opened, it can represent a wine-pitcher, wine-cup, door,

archery target, and any number of other things. The kazora-oke is used mostly as

a stool to sit on, or a large box or container, but its lid sometimes becomes an

extra-large wine cup.

The plays are usually performed with a face bare of any make-up or

covering so that the actor’s expressions can be enjoyed by the audience, but there

are about fifty plays in which one character or another is masked. For example,

there is a mask known as ‘the whistler’, which has pursed lips as if it was

whistling. It is very like the comic mask which is used in the ancient kagura

dances, so it could be very early indeed, perhaps even antedating sarugaku. It is
used for an extremely large variety of characters: a scarecrow, an octopus, a locust,

the spirit of a mosquito, the spirit of pine resin. and the spirit of a mushroom –

and though its pursed lips make it seem a bit starved, its character is always

cheerful. Then there is a mask used for comic demon roles, which is also

sometimes used simply as a mask to frighten people, as it is in The Angry Aunt
and her Sake where a young man wears it to scare his aunt out of the house so
that he can drink her liquor. There are also masks for the gods and some animals,

like the monkey mask which is used in The Monkey-Skin Quiver, and finally there
are a rather exaggerated but realistic old man’s mask, which is used for grandfather

roles, and two masks for women, one representing a sweet and innocent, but rather

plain, young girl and the other an older woman who is always angry.

The costumes used, like those in nob, are known as shozoku (which means

‘robes’). They tell us nothing about the personality of the character wearing them

but only about their social position. They are stylised versions of medieval

costume. A daimyo wears his tall, black, triangular hat (eboshi), a kimono with
broad horizontal stripes, a cloak with broad sleeves (suo) on top of that, and long
over-trousers that drag on the floor behind him. A master wears the same long

trousers and horizontally striped kimono, but he has a sleeveless cloak with stiff

shoulders and he does not wear a hat. Taro Kaja wears a kimono with a plaid or

checked pattern, shorter trousers and the same type of sleeveless stiff cloak as his

master but decorated with a bolder and gaudier pattern. A woman wears a brightly

patterned kimono tied with a narrow sash and has a white cloth wrapped round

her head with the ends hanging down on both sides. Priests and demons, too, arc
easily recognised from their costumes.

The main way in which kyogen differs from the noh, apart from its
consciously childlike simplicity, is in its naked expression of emotion. When a
master is annoyed with his servant he shouts, ‘Hey, you rascal!’ and when a
woman is angry she stamps her foot on the ground and screams, ‘Oh, how angry,
how angry I am!’ People drink and sing and dance together, and they often laugh
loudly at the end of the play, from sheer joy. Conversely, in some plays, like The
Monkey-Skin Quiver, a character becomes very sad and weeps noisily.

All this helps to arouse the audience’s sympathy, and one thing at least is
clear: although kyogen may be simple, it appeals to the audience. It is the only
form of Japanese traditional drama which is not only flourishing, but steadily
becoming more popular. More and more amateurs in Japan are studying it, and the
current leader of the Nomura clan has recently devised several new kyogen, like
The Cowardly Samurai which is based on the misfortunes of Sir John Falstaff in
The Merry Wives of Windsor.

NOTES

In a poem which was included in a collection of Japanese and Chinese Poetry called the
Wakan Roei Shu put together in 1013 AD.

2 Arthur Waley quoting from the Uji Shui of 1215 AD, in Waley, p 15.

3 Manzo Nomura in Kyogen no michi (The Way of Kyogen); in Kenny (1989) p. xvii.

4 Don Kenny in his introduction to The Kyogen Book, The Japan Times, 1989, p. xvii.

5 Komparu (1983), Chap I, pp 3-4.

6 This paragraph and all that follows is drawn mostly from Kyogen, by Tatsuo Y oshikoshi
& Hitashi llata, translated by Don Kenny.

7 The sacred kagura-dcn is a slightly larger version of the worship pavilion (hai-den)
illustrated in Fig 2.

MEDIEVAL

JAPAN
Heiankyo = Kyoto

Edo = Tokyo

0 CJ

Fig 1 Some important locations in medieval Japan

THE TRADITIONAL THEATRE OF JAPAN
Kyogen, Noh, Kabuki, and Puppetry

John Wesley Harris

;911,.1;,1;r-l
The Edwi~ Kf ellen Press

Lewiston-Queenston-Larnpeter

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Harris, John Wesley.
The traditional theatre of Japan : kyogen, noh, kabuki and puppetry/ John Wesley Harris.

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7734-5798-4
I. Performing arts–Japan–History. l. Title.

PN292 I .H366 2006
79 I .0952–dc22

2006041952

hors serie.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

The Edwin Mellen Press
Box 450

Lewiston, New York
USA 14092-0450

The Edwin Mellen Press
Box 67

Queenston, Ontario
CANADA LOS !LO

The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd.
Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales

UNITED KINGDOM SA48 SL T

Printed in the United States of America

CHAPTER4

The nature and history of the noh play

Noh, the drama of ‘skill’, whose origins were touched upon in the last chapter, is

normally acted entirely by men I on a unique kind of stage (see Figs 3 and 4). The

stage and the raised causeway that leads to it (the hashigakari or ‘bridge’) both
have a roof over them. This is because, in its original form, noh was played in the

open air, and the stage part of the theatre, which probably then lacked a ‘bridge’,

was a pavilion erected for the performance of the sacred kagura dance, the four

pillars supporting the roof being used to define the consecrated space in which the

dance took place.2 This sense of sacredness has persisted even into modem times,

and a new noh stage still requires to be blessed before any performance can be

given on it. The stage is made out of Japanese cypress wood (hinoki), and the
theatre as a whole has proportions that are very satisfactory to the eye. The floor

on which the performance takes place looks as if it is highly polished, but the

bean-curd residue called okara with which it is annointed daily actually provides a

slightly sticky, non-slip surface.

The stage area has virtually no decoration, except for the painting of a pine-

tree on the back-wall and stems of bamboo on the wall which stands at right-angles

to it, to the right of the rear stage (all positions on stage in this account are

described from the audience’s point of view). These decorations are traditional,

and some Japanese believe that they simply recall the original open-air nature of

the setting, when noh plays were performed under a famous pine-tree near the

Kasuga Shrine in Nara, and clumps of living bamboo were used to mark out the

entrance and exit points for the actors. However, both the action and language of

noh plays are very symbolic, and according to the classical conventions of poetic

imagery, the pine-tree implies ‘pining’ for the past – the Japanese word ‘matsu’

having the same two meanings as the word ‘pine’ in English – whilst the knotted

stems of the bamboo are used to symbolise the trials and tribulations of the world.

Since these two elements – the sorrows of life and regrets concerning the past –

seem to characterise the majority of noh plays, the decoration may well be
thematic.

The performance of noh

The performance begins with the entry of the musicians – three drummers and a

flute-player – who approach the stage along the hashigakari, dressed in formal
court costume of the late middle-ages, with its broad, stiff shoulders. They take up

their position on the rear stage, in front of the painting of the pine-tree – the hip-

drummer and shoulder-drummer on stools slightly to left and right of centre

respectively, whilst the two other musicians squat down on the stage floor beside

them, the stick-drummer to their left and the flute-player to their right (see Fig 4).

Next to appear are the members of the chorus, who also wear formal court dress.

They enter quickly through a low sliding door (kirido) at the back of the right side
of the rear stage, below the painted bamboos. This ‘concealed’ entrance, which is

often jokingly called ‘the bellyache door’ because the actors have to double up to

get through it, is mostly for chorus use, but occasionally assistants and very minor

characters make their entry there. The most important characters all make their

entrances and exits along the hashigakari,

The first character to appear is played by the waki, the supporting actor,

and he sets the play going with an announcement of who he is, where he is

supposed to be, and why he is there. This speech is usually delivered from the

‘naming place’ which is beside the shite pillar (the pillar which rises where the

downstage edge of the hashigakari meets the stage). After this he moves to take

up a position, usually seated, just above the pillar downstage right, which is

named after him. This side position probably explains his name, because waki
means ‘side’ and implies that he is an observer. The principal actor, the shite
(‘shtay’), who makes his appearance later on, also usually makes his first speech
from the ‘naming place’ but, being more important, he may come further forward

to deliver it.
However, sometimes the shite’s first speech is not delivered on the stage

proper. There are three small living pine-trees planted on the audience side of the
hashigakari at ground level, and these mark points along the causeway where the
principal actors sometimes stop to make speeches. Traditionally they symbolise
the situation of mankind (the middle pine) which is influenced by the powers of
heaven (the pine to the left near the entry-door) and earth (the pine to the right
nearest the stage). When the actors stop alongside them, these pines can
sometimes have exactly that significance. For instance a god character who is
making his entrance can deliver some of his speeches from ‘heaven’ – alongside the
pine-tree nearest to the entry – and then make his appearance on ‘earth’ by moving
swiftly forward and taking up a position beside the pine-tree nearest to the stage.
Similarly a character can stop at the central ‘mankind’ pine to deliver a speech

reflecting their inner emotions. This can happen at any time during the
performance, not only when delivering the first speech, so the hashigakari should
be considered an occasional extension to the acting area.

The use of the stage space is very conventional. A noh play consists
essentia~ly of an interchange between the shite and the waki. Either or both of
these actors may have one or more tsure or assistants, but the play always has
two ‘opposed’ forces represented on stage, and this dichotomy is emphasised by
the fact that the downstage-right pillar is allocated to the waki and the partly
upstage left ‘naming place’ pillar is allotted mainly to the shite. This creates a
strong diagonal confrontation, along a line which divides the stage into two halves.
The triangle of space to the left and front of this diagonal is used extensively by
the shite to move and dance in, but the triangle of space to the right and behind the
diagonal, beyond the waki, is largely considered to be ‘dead’ space, and any actor

temporarily sitting there is usually considered not to exist, so far as the scene

being played is concerned.

The diagonal is also observed in another piece of conventional stage

movement which is common in noh plays – the action of ‘travelling’ from one

place to another – which is often accompanied by a song in which the chorus

describes the features of the landscape that are being passed. The track which is

travelled by the actor can have a number of different shapes. The usual trip begins

from the ‘naming place’. The actor then moves in a curving path past the ‘sight-

guiding pillar’ (downstage left) towards the ‘waki pillar’ (downstage right) where

he executes a tum and then moves in a straight line back to where he started. This

results in a path that is shaped very much like an archer’s bow and avoids the

‘dead’ area of the stage. There is another version of the trip in which the actor

does not stop at the ‘naming place’ on his return but enters the hashigakari and

ends his trip at the first pine, and there is yet another in which he proceeds a few

steps down stage from the ‘naming place’ then turns sharply to his left and goes

upstage centre to stop in front of the stick-drum player.

When the performance begins, the lyrical melody of the beautifully clear but

slightly reedy noh flute (nohkan) will be fairly accessible to any western visitor,

but when the actor’s voice is first heard, either unaccompanied or added to the

music, they will be struck immediately by the strangeness of the chant which is

used to deliver most of the words. It is a very musical kind of chanting, very
precisely pitched, which soars and swoops through a range of tones, and the

western ear does not always find it easy, at first, to distinguish the chants from

the songs of the piece – although the songs are, in fact, more melodic. The

spectator’s best policy is simply to relax and absorb the general effect and their

ear will soon become attuned to the music. They will also begin to appreciate the

skill of the chanter, which is all that is necessary, because on the musical level a

noh play is best appreciated, like western opera, as a display of outstanding vocal

virtuosity. This is true even for a modern Japanese audience, since most of the

language of any noh play is far too archaic for them to understand, and like the

western visitor, they need to use a plot-summary to follow what is going on.
The movement of a noh play is more accessible to a westerner than the

music, although it is presented with such a high degree of control that it may
initially appear stilted. The visitor is first likely to notice the smoothness of the
actor’s walk. He wears no footwear apart from white tabi-socks, which have a big
toe separated from the others, and, when moving, the actor’s heel and toe seem
hardly to lift from the floor. It is a perfectly achieved kind of movement and the
noh has sometimes been described as ‘the art of walking’. The posture of the actor
is almost always erect, both when walking and sitting, and his gestures are very

limited and functional.
However, the feature of the noh play which in most cases is more important

than the text and the chanting is a dance or series of dances. These, too, will seem
very restrained to the western visitor, because they are almost always ground-
based and have none of the lightness and upward aspiration of the western ballet,
except on the occasions when a god dances after he has become intoxicated.
Nonetheless, as the viewer gets to know the style better, these dances can become
very moving – for instance, the sheer restraint of the ghost of a murdered man
dancing out the story of his death to the chant of the chorus can give the
performance an incredible degree of emotional tension.

Even silent movement, unaccompanied by a chant or music, can be extremely
powerful in the noh. There is a play called Sumida River (Sumidagawa) where a
mother driven mad by worry because her son has been taken away from her by
slave-traders, follows their route for many days and eventually finds his grave.
After she has expressed her agony at the loss, and the words of the play are
expended, she walks two or three times around the stage in silence, and the effect
is an extremely poignant one. By contrast an actor will sometimes stamp on the
stage, particularly if he is an assertive character, to reinforce a point, and such a
stamp is also conventionally used to mark his disappearance if be is a god. When
this happens, the sound of the blow will be amplified by open pots placed
strategically under the stage to catch and echo the sound.

The costumes of the performers can range from an austere black, or black-

and-white, for priests and nuns, to rich and elaborate robes for gods, court ladies,

and emperors. The more elaborate robes are made of the most beautiful brocades

and printed materials. They are never gaudy, and have none of the over-

theatricality, and occasional garishness, of some kabuki costumes. This is not

surprising because, originally, they were often donated to the actors by rich nobles

or Buddhist abbots, who had very discriminating tastes, and this tradition of

tastefulness has been carried through directly into the modern noh.

A mask (nohmen or omote) will be worn by the principal actor-dancer

(shile), and by his companion (/sure) if he has one, when the character that he is

playing is a woman, a warrior, an old man, a demon or a god – and the subject-

matter of the play will almost always ensure that the shite is, in fact, playing one

of these roles. The rare exceptions are plays where the hero is a male character

who once actually existed, and in such roles, instead of wearing a mask, the shile is

required to ‘kill the face’, draining it of expression and turning it into the

equivalent of a mask (hitamen). This practice is followed by all the unmasked

performers in a noh play. When killing the face, the facial muscles must not be

used to form any expression and, strictly speaking, the actor should not even

allow his eyelids to blink. The ‘dead’ face is then used in exactly the same way

that a mask is used. It may be tilted upwards to ‘brighten’ it (omote o terasu)

which usually expresses joy, or tilted down to ‘cloud’ it (omote o kumorasuy
which expresses sadness, or it can be turned from side to side, either quickly to

show a strong emotion like anger, or slowly and perhaps repeatedly in order to

show some deeper and more inarticulate emotion.

The properties of the noh stage are highly conventionalised and kept to a

minimum. The folding fan which the actor usually carries is perhaps the most

important property of all. It is mainly used to extend and emphasise the

movements of his arm in the dance, but it can also be used to represent many

objects, such as a wine-jug, flute, water-scoop, or writing brush, sometimes even a

sword – though usually weapons are more realistically represented, and the short-

sword, belt-sword, bow, pike, spear, and Chinese broad-sword all make an

appearance. A boat or a chariot will be represented on stage by an open
framework of bamboo. Palaces, houses, cottages, and huts, are all represented by
four supporting posts covered with a roof, their different natures often being
indicated by the degree to which the sides are enclosed to indicate constriction.
Some stage-props are very specific to the plays they serve; amongst these are the
grave mound in Sumida River, the pine-tree that the ghost of Matsukaze mistakes
in her madness for her long-lost lover, or the temple bell that is brought crashing
down by the vindictive serpent spirit in Dojoji – this last is a stiff structure made
wholly of cloth, but it needs to be very large, because the shite has to leap up into
it, and change his mask inside it. There are also two properties with a more general
use: a wooden, cloth-covered platform the size of a tatami mat (ichijo-dai) which
is used to represent a high place such as a dais, a hilltop, or a location up in the
clouds; and the same large cylindrical container with a lid that was mentioned
when discussing kyogen (the kazura-oke) – in noh this is often placed centre stage
for the shite to sit on, and it is sometimes used for the same purpose in the mirror
room, while the actor is waiting to make his entry. However, everything is kept as
simple as possible so that it does not interfere with the actors’ movement and

dancing.J
The mood most frequently induced by a noh play to-day, when the language

is not understood, except by the actors, and the chanting, dance and movement are
all extremely concentrated and powerful, is a kind of detached appreciation of a
superbly orchestrated multi-media performance. The spectator is drawn into a
relaxed but alert frame of mind, almost a meditative state, which is extremely
conducive to pondering the serious matters that the play deals with – at least this
is the effect on a modern spectator.

As we shall see later on, descriptions of early noh performances suggest
that in those days the plays had a very different, and much more immediate, kind

of appeal.

The dramatic action of a nob play

At this point, it will be helpful to look at the shape of a typical noh play, so let us
consider the dramatic action of a piece called Nishikigi (Love Tokens), which
represents a type of play that is frequently presented, the ‘noh of ghosts’.

The first character to appear is a priest, who is instantly recognisable from
his costume. He is, of course, the waki, who always sets the scene. He enters
down the hashigakari and, when he reaches the stage, tells the audience that he is
taking advantage of a short vacation to do some sight-seeing in the provinces. He
wonders exactly where he is and moves across the stage to his usual position at
the right front, just beside the chorus. He says he has heard that the village of Kefu
is on the coast nearby and wonders if he can reach it before nightfall.

Two other characters now appear on the hashigakari, a man and a woman.
These are the shite and his companion. They are dressed like two peasants, but
they linger near the ‘heaven’ tree, and exchange speeches there which suggest that
they are deeply entangled in some kind of hopeless love-affair, and because they
linger in that position, the audience suspects that they are perhaps not entirely
beings of this world.

The chorus now intervenes to suggest that the man has offered his love to
the woman for a thousand nights without being accepted and, as it does so, the
two characters advance down the hashigakari, The priest, who now sees them,
takes them for a man and his wife. He observes that the woman seems to be
holding a narrow length of woven cloth and that the man is carrying a wooden rod
(which the audience can sec is coloured red). He asks the travellers what these
objects mean. They tell him that these two things are famous mementos of an
event that happened in the area. The priest asks them to tell him the story. The
chorus say that it all happened long ago, and for the first time they imply that the
seeming man and his wife are in fact disembodied spirits. The man tells him that it
is the local custom for a suitor to set up one of these wooden rods, or nishikigi,
inscribed with his name and a poem, as an offer of marriage in front of the door of

the girl he loves. The woman then takes up the wand of the man she wants, and
leaves all the others where they are. The female character tells the priest that there
is a local legend about a man who never had his love-tokens accepted and after a
thousand nights died of despair and was buried in a nearby cave together with all
his love-wands. The priest says he would like to see the cave, which is near Kefu,

and they agree to take him there.
They travel to the cave, illustrating their action with a ‘journey’ (michiyuki)

round the stage which follows the usual ‘archer’s bow’ shape, while the chorus
sings a travelling song recounting the places they pass and the sights they see as
they go. The song concludes with a description of the autumn weather, the
shadows of night approaching, and the lonely cry of an owl. The shite and his
companions have now reached the ‘earth’ end of the hashigakari. The two ghosts
pause as the priest returns to his usual place, where he sits and takes up a sleeping
posture. They then retreat up the hashigakari and exit. The chorus declares that

they have gone into the cave.
The priest wakes; he is restless and prays to Buddha to ease the spirits of

the man who died of despair and his unyielding lady-love. The two spirits
reappear and thank him for his prayer, which has now united them in love after so
many hundreds of years. The chorus draw attention to the cave. The priest tells us
that he suddenly sees its interior glittering brightly, looking like the inside of a
house, with a loom set up, and a pile of love-tokens on the floor. He begs the
spirits to show him the story of what happened. They do so, in the form of a
dance, accompanied by a song which they partly share with the chorus, showing
him the offering of the love-tokens and the unresponsiveness of the girl at her
loom. Meanwhile the chorus recounts the emotions of the man as he gradually
sinks into despair, and give voice to his unfulfilled yearning to be married.

Then the dance changes and becomes more animated. As a result of the
priest’s prayers the miseries of the unfulfilled lovers have been brought to an end.
Their spirits, which have been trapped for so long on earth by their inability to
set aside their emotions of regret and disappointment, are now united and freed,

…..

and can at last be reborn. The chorus imitate the cock crowing. It is morning. The
priest again falls into a sleeping posture. The two lovers move towards the
hashigakari and slowly depart, whilst the chorus beg the audience to recall that,
even though they and the priest will soon wake up again, the whole of life is as
insubstantial as a dream. They declare that there is nothing left now but a bare
field containing the empty cave which is hidden in its own darkness, whilst up
above the morning wind is blowing through the pine trees.f

The structure of a noh play

The structure of this play is fairly typical. Zeami, who created the form of the
modem noh drama described the ideal shape for it to take in 1423 in his Treatise

on Composing Noh Plays.5 There he says that a play should normally be divided

into five steps or sequences (dan). In the first sequence, the waki introduces
himself and explains the background of the coming action; in the second sequence,
the shite enters and delivers a solo song; in the third sequence, there is a brief
exchange of questions and answers between the waki and the shite; in the fourth
sequence, there is either a musical kusemai (a kind of danced story) or a tada-utai
(a popular song with irregular rhythms); and in the fifth sequence, the shite re-
enters transformed into his real character, and there is an appropriate climactic
dance or some other vigorous action. If it is a dance, it can be either hayabushi
(rapid music, with two syllables of the text to each beat), which is exciting, or
kiribyoshi (a slower rhythm, of one syllable per beat) which produces a calm and
majestic effect.

This pattern is essentially followed in Nishikigi, although the two lovers are
clearly implied to be ghosts from their first entrance, which is a little unusual, and
they return as their ‘real characters’ in the fourth, rather than the fifth, sequence,
which happens quite often. Otherwise the recommended structure is observed, and
the dances in the last two sections differ in tempo – a slower narrative dance and a
quicker dance of rejoicing – as Zeami implies they should. In other plays the

transformation of the ghost from what is apparently a local peasant or everyday

person into their ‘real’ form can be quite startling, and involve the shite in making a

striking change of costume and adopting a second mask. For instance, a ferryman

can be transformed into a fierce and emotionally ravaged warrior, or a maidservant

into a savage lion. In Nishikigi the change is more a psychological change of

attitude than an alteration of external appearance but it is, in its own way, no less

memorable.

The growth and development of noh

Having looked briefly at the structure and content of a noh play, we are now in a

position to discover where this form of theatre came from and how it took the

shape that it has to-day.f We have already considered its very early origins in the

sarugaku entertainments when we were describing the origins ofkyogen. Here we

need to consider what happened to it later.

In the twelfth century, when the Heian court in Kyoto was still pursuing its

ideal world of music, poetry, love and fine calligraphy, a new form of drama began

to spring up in the important Buddhist monasteries. It was used to round out

festivals or ceremonies, or to entertain important guests, and it was provided by

troupes of sarugaku performers who were servants of the monastery. These men

were accustomed to take religious names ending in ‘-ami’ which was an

abbreviation of the name of Amida Buddha, the benevolent saviour who gathers

thesouls of true believers into his Western Paradise – names like Kiami (‘spirit of

Amida’), Zoami (‘essence of Amida’), and so forth. These names suggest that the

actors were considered to be lay-priests, although they never in fact took holy

orders or conducted any ceremonies.

The new type of play took the form of song-and-dance pieces which

showed demons being overcome by priests armed with the teachings of Buddha.

These were not yet noh plays but later some of them were refined and taken into

the noh repertory as ‘demon plays’, which were the plays usually performed to

round out the day’s programme. ‘Demon plays’ are one of the five main categories

of play into which the noh repertory is divided. These new plays proved to be so

popular with the general public that the actors added them to the programmes of

general entertainments and farces that they toured round the countryside at times

when the monasteries did not need their services. The monasteries were happy

with this arrangement, because when the actors were on the road they provided

their own upkeep and ceased to be a burden upon the community resources. In

any case, they were only really needed by the monasteries at specific times, like

local festivals or the visits of important nobles. But woe betide the actors if they

did not turn up at the monasteries when they were supposed to be there! If that
happened the very least the leaders of the troupe could expect were twenty
strokes of the heavy bamboo!

When the time for a ceremony came round, the acting troupes often had a
very important part to play. The most famous occasion, from a noh point of view,
was the Wakamiya festival at the Kasuga Shrine, which in those days used to
occur on the 17th and 18th of December, although nowadays it occurs in October.
On the first day of the festival there was a long procession from the small temple
at the Kasuga shrine to the Kofuku-ji monastery nearby, in order to transfer the
image of the local god to the monastery for the duration of the festival. During the
procession, various groups of performers took turns to give a series of short
musical dance pieces in front of a sacred tree – a majestic and very ancient pine –
that stood beside the second torii, or ceremonial gate, set up on the road to the
main temple. This tree, as has already been noted, is regarded by some as the
original of the pine-tree painted on the panel at the back of all noh stages.
Performances of plays were also presented to the image of the god when he arrived
at his temporary shrine at the great south gate of the monastery, with the actors
facing the shrine. On the second day the god was ceremonially returned to the
Kasuga temple from the temporary shrine at the monastery by means of another
procession. When the image had left, further performances were given at the
temporary shrine but now the performers turned their backs upon it and played

to the audience outside, and the pieces given were pure entertainment without any

particularly religious content.

As time passed, the contact of the actors with the scholars in the

monasteries, and the noblemen who constantly attended their performances,

became closer and this led them to add speeches of a poetical nature to the pieces

they were presenting in order to enhance the song and dance. The first examples of

this took the form of chanted monologue that was used to establish the particular

setting and situation of the coming drama and, in this way, the waki’s role was
born. More significantly, though, the contact with these same noble patrons led

the actors to incorporate elegant songs and dances that were currently popular at

court and, in particular, to borrow the dance techniques and style of the serious

gagaku, or ‘court music’, which had been imported from China and which, even as
early as the eighth century, contained well-developed theatrical elements in the

form of narrative dances, performed by a single dancer in a mask, which celebrated

the achievements of great military heroes and famous emperors of China or the

deeds of the ancient Chinese gods. These dances eventually provided another of

the five categories of play into which the noh is generally divided, the ‘play of

blessing’ or ‘god play’ which was usually used to introduce a noh programme. The

controlled gestures and movements of the court dances were also absorbed into the

‘god play’ and endowed it with an air of stateliness and dignity.

As a result of this, by the thirteenth century we see something that we

definitely recognise as noh developing and, indeed, by then it is already being

called by that name, which means that the actors were beginning to see themselves

as ‘skilled’ professionals rather than priests. Y ct it did not as yet have any kind of

fixed shape, despite its contact with the ‘court music’, which had a very strong

aesthetic of jo-ha-kyu that we will consider later. It was also during this period

that nobles began to patronise the players heavily and invite them to their

mansions and, as a result, they began to tell the stories of famous Japanese

warriors in their plays, thus creating another of the five basic categories of noh, the

‘warrior play’, which usually took the second place in the programme. The actors

performed in the courtyards of noble houses, and the lords, we hear, sometimes
required them to enact ‘warrior’ pieces in full armour and even mounted upon war-
horses.

Meanwhile the dengaku actors, who tended to be associated mostly with
Shinto festivals and small rural temples in the countryside, noted the success of
the sarugaku actors and began to develop noh plays of their own. These were, of
course, still sarugaku noh plays, even though they were performed by dengaku
actors, as will be seen from the description of a medieval performance given later.
They seem to have differed from the offerings of the sarugaku companies by
using simpler stories and mostly traditional songs and dances and in the early
stages they certainly depended more on the participation of the whole troupe than
upon the expertise of individual actors – although it was not long before the
dengaku troupes began to develop famous shite of their own. Perhaps the relative
simplicity of their approach appealed to the jaded palates of the courtiers, because
there were violent crazes for dengaku performances ofnoh at court, particularly in
the first three quarters of the fourteenth century. Nonetheless, by I 603, when
Ieyasu had finally settled the country down and established the Tokugawa
Shogunate, dengaku troupes were falling steadily out of favour, and never
recovered their appeal – so all the noh troupes we have today are the descendants
of sarugaku companies.

The establishment of an enforced peace after several centuries of violent civil
war caused the samurai warriors and their lords to look elsewhere for something to
occupy their minds and the result, amongst other things, was an attempt to revive
the artistic values of the ancient Heian court. It was this artistic revival that
directed their attention to the poetry and other writings of the period, which, like
Lady Murasaki’s famous novel, The Tale of Genji, were deeply involved with
sensitive and highly emotive tales oflove. As a result the play about women, the
‘wig’ play, came into existence, traditionally the third and most artistic category of
noh, and together with it the ‘madwoman’ or ‘lunatic’ play, which formed the
fourth category, and was sometimes more Confucian than Buddhist in its values.

At this time, too, the simple form of demon play which was currently used to end
a performance, began to be rather looked down upon, and more refined treatments
of the defeat of evil, or its conversion into good, developed, like The Valley Rite

which we will consider later.

Subscription list (kanjin) performances

By this time a large number of noh stages existed but they were all located in
Buddhist monasteries, Shinto temples or noblemen’s courtyards. When the
troupes performed in country villages on tour they used any stage that was
available or even played on the ground. Noh had by now become so popular, that
it began to be used by priests from the Buddhist temples to raise money for
essential public works like repairing a local road or bridge or building a new one.
Such shows were known as kanjin or ‘subscription-list’ performances and usually
took place on a temporary noh stage erected in the countryside, most often on a
dry river bed, which provided a naturally level foundation to build on. The
organiser (kanjin-hijiri) would allow about a month for the building of a stage, if
one did not already exist, and for the erection of stands and boxes, which tended to
be commissioned and built by those who were going to use them. The boxes were
set up in a circle around the stage at a distance of about fifty or sixty feet and
accommodated the rich citizens and noblemen attending, while the poorer people
sat on the ground within the circle and other nobles and gentlemen brought their
carriages to any points at the edge of the audience area where there were no boxes
and watched the performance from there. However, not all kanjin performances
were presented in the open – they were sometimes given in one of the halls of a
temple, probably because this did not involve the extra expense of building a stage
or, indeed, of making any arrangements except those to collect the money.

Kanjin programmes were usually presented in the form of three separate
one-day performances, with intervals of three or four days in between, to rest the
actors and increase the attendance. After all, not everybody would be willing, or

indeed able, to watch plays on three consecutive days. Sometimes, though, the

gaps between the playing days would get lengthened by bad weather, which

inhibited performance because in the open air nobody was protected except the

actors under their roofs and the nobles in their boxes.

For many years the financial strings of kanjin performances remained in the
hands of the monasteries but it was inevitable that the actors were going to cash in

on this kind of performance sooner or later and this eventually happened when the

power of the monasteries was reduced by the Tokugawa Shogunate after 1603.

An eventful performance in 1349

These early noh performances had great popular appeal, which seems rather

curious to us today, because we view the noh as a highly refined and intellectual

form of drama. However, the elegance and exclusiveness of the modem noh is

partly the bequest of Zeami, of whom we shall have more to say later. A

description we have of a kanjin noh in 1349 shows us the nature of an early

performance and also draws attention to the dangers of public disorder in the days

of the clan wars. It occurred at a time when competitions between noh troupes

were becoming very popular and fiercely contended – a practice which led to noh

masters passing on ‘secret writings’ about the art to their successors in the clan.

The whole passage is worth quoting in full: 7

‘On the eleventh day of the sixth month of this year, a wandering priest,

who planned to build a bridge at Shijo, brought together the dengaku players of

the Shinza (‘the new guild’) and the Honza (‘the old guild’) and, dividing them into

two companies of old and young performers, set them against each other in a trial

of skill. The stands were built on the river bank at Shijo. As it was to be a rare

spectacle, men and women of all ranks thronged to it in extraordinary numbers.

The entertainment was to be enjoyed by nobles, including the Regent and

government ministers, by abbots of noble blood, and by warriors like the Shogun.

Because of this, there were all sorts of people vying with each other to set up the

most impressive stands – servants, nobles, court officials, samurai from different

clans, and even priests from a number of shrines and temples. Amongst other

materials, pillars of wood were brought from Nagato, which, when they had been

cut and shaped, were some of them five by six inches thick and others a massive

eight inches by nine, and a great, imposing structure was built, four hundred and

fifteen feet in circumference (which means that the boxes were about 60 feet from

the stage) and three or four stories high.
‘When the time arrived, fine carriages made from sweet-smelling wood

jostled for places and there was no space left to tie up the richly caparisoned

horses. Drapery leapt and danced in the wind, and all the air was filled with the

fragrance of incense. The old and the young companies of performers had separate

tents to the east and the west, with a bridge leading to the stage on either side. The

curtains of the dressing-rooms were made of painted cloth. The hangings were of

gold brocade which, as they fluttered in the wind, looked for all the world like

leaping flames. The stage was spread with red and emerald rugs, and covered with

folding-chairs and stools, while leopard and tiger skins hung at the back and over

the rails, so that the eye was dazzled at the sight and all other thoughts were

driven from the mind.

‘Then, as the first sounds of stately music brought a murmur from the

eagerly waiting audience, with the sound of the drums and the introductory notes

of a flute coming from the dressing-rooms on opposite sides, eight beautiful young

boys, all dressed in robes of gold brocade, richly perfumed and with highly-

painted faces, slowly emerged from the eastern dressing-room. From the west,

eight priests filed out, handsome men with lightly made-up faces and blackened

teeth, all resplendent in fantastically-coloured robes embroidered with all manner

of flowers and birds, which they wore over silver, patterned trousers, gathered in

at the ankles where the dye was the deepest. As they came in beating time, with

rush hats worn at an angle, the whole scene was truly magnificent…

‘A most impressive performance followed of a sarugaku noh, about a

miraculous blessing given by the god ofHiyoshi. During the course of this play, a

1·- .~······· ···—–·-·-·–···-·–··—-············· -.- ··–·~~—-·=··. – – . ·-··-·······-··———– II” . J ======:::::::::=–::::::·:=::—

child of seven or eight, wearing a monkey mask, came out of the young actors’

dressing-room, reverently carrying a sacred staff. His top robe was of gold brocade

on a red ground and on his feet he wore slippers of fur. Entering to a tripping beat,

and travelling diagonally to and fro along the red and green arched bridge to the

stage, he jumped up onto the handrail, turned this way and that, then leapt down

and up again on the other side. The scene as he did so was like something from

another world. The excitement was unbearable, as people told one another that the

god of the shrine must surely have taken possession of the boy for him to be able
to perform such marvels.

‘So it came to pass that the people in the stands covering more than five

hundred feet, unable to contain themselves, or even remain in their places, filled

the whole arena with gasps and cries in a sustained clamour of excitement and

suspense. Even beautiful ladies-in-waiting, watching from lightly curtained areas

near the Shogun’s box, with the hems of their shot-silk robes held high to conceal

their faces, could be seen lifting the hanging curtains with their fans. Then, as

everybody craned forward to look, one of the stands built of heavy beams five or

six inches thick began to tilt and, before you could even catch your breath, the

stands near it, two-stories high, covering an area of twelve hundred and forty-five

feet in all, came crashing down one after another.

‘The number of those who died among the great piles of fallen timber is past

all knowing. In the confusion thieves began stealing swords. Some ran off with

them but others, having found blades, stayed to lay about them. Cries and shouts

rose up from people who had had limbs broken or slashed, from others, covered

with blood, who had been run through with swords or halberds when they joined

in the fighting, and from others again who had scalded themselves with the boiling

water used for making tea. The scene might well have been that of evildoers crying

and wailing in a common hell. The dengaku players, still wearing devil masks and

brandishing red canes, gave chase to thieves who were escaping with stolen

costumes. Young samurai unsheathed their weapons and went after men who had

carried off their masters’ ladies. Some of the abductors turned and fought, others

were cut down as they fled, and lay with reddening bodies. It was as if Hell’s
unending battles and the tortures exacted by the demons were being carried out

before your eyes.’

This is admittedly a highly dramatic account of an exceptional event but it
shows how different the atmosphere of performances was in the hey-day ofnoh’s

popularity compared to the hushed and reverential atmosphere in which the plays

tend to be performed today. When people went to the noh in those days they

expected to be entertained by the skill of the actors and overwhelmed by the

splendour of their costumes. They ate and drank and chatted with their

neighbours, and cheered and shouted with excitement and approval at the parts

that pleased them most, as if they were in a wrestling stadium. In fact they

behaved very much like the kabuki audience did a few centuries later, because in an

age when violence and war, disease, fire and famine, not to mention the inevitable

earthquakes, were everyday hazards, the music and colour of noh was something

which enabled the ordinary people to briefly escape from their wretchedness, and

the performances must have had a vitality and force quite different to the

concentrated and controlled impression that they give today.

The nob troupes establish guilds (za)

Throughout the late Heian period and the Kamakura period that followed it – from

about 1100 to 1333 CE – the troupes of both dengaku and sarugaku performers
were steadily increasing in number and, since there were only a few really

profitable performances that could be given at temples and shrines, this led lo

increasingly fierce competition for the pickings. Because of this the actors began to

consider organising themselves for greater efficiency and looking around them they

found themselves surrounded by the newly developed trade guilds, each of which

exerted a monopolistic influence over a specific area of production, within which it

controlled the flow of raw materials, arranged for distribution of the products of

its members, fixed prices, settled disputes, and so on – which was precisely

what the actors wanted. So they set about establishing guilds, or za, of their own.
In their case, each za tended to be attached to a powerful shrine or temple and it
would be granted a monopoly over all performances within the shrine’s or
temple’s domains, which could be extensive. In return, it was understood that the
za would give free performances for the temple on the occasion of certain local
religious festivals.

The dengaku players were the first in the field, in about 1200, establishing
their Honza (or ‘original guild’) near Kyoto and their Shinza (or ‘new guild’) at
Nara. Sarugaku players, on the other hand, were at first prevented from
establishing guilds by the powerful Buddhist temples that employed them, which
were not happy at the idea of dealing with an independent ‘trade union’ when
they could simply keep the actors under their thumb. Eventually, though, the
sarugaku players managed to get their own Honza established at Tamba in about
1260 and their Shinza in Settsu province a little later. Many more guilds were
established after that by both types of company, and one or two sarugaku za
have been preserved in Yamato to the present day; but, for the most part, the
word za has come to mean the theatre in which the company is performing – their
‘guildhall’ as it were. The coming of the guilds had a profound effect on the
development of noh, because the players began to feel that they had the guild’s
honour to maintain in competition with other guilds and also a guild tradition to
perpetuate and noh was the most serious part of their material, where their skills
could be raised to the highest level and shown at their best.

To maintain the value of their monopolistic privileges, the guilds naturally
limited their membership and, even when a vacancy occurred in their ranks, they
did not fill it at once but would cast about for the most useful member they could
find – preferably somebody who was not only potentially a good actor but who
also came from a fairly rich family. However, in various ways, dengaku noh guilds
and sarugaku noh guilds differed in such matters.

So far as the dengaku noh guilds were concerned, there seems to have been a
traditional membership of thirteen actors. No convincing reason has ever been

advanced for this, although various ‘reasons’ were discovered later, like the fact

that the Buddha had thirteen important disciples. A more likely reason is that the

number represents the thirteen lunar months of the year, because we find the

number thirteen linked ‘magically’ all over the world with groups who have

religious responsibilities for sowing and reaping grain, and the dengaku players

were originally a group of that kind. New members for the dengaku noh guilds

were always auditioned before appointment and their temple or shrine would then

ratify the choice by providing the new member with an official pass to their

precincts. In fact temple authorities never tried to interfere with the choice of new

dengaku actors but, as dengaku noh became more popular, rich and powerful

patrons from outside sometimes demanded that temples should license particular

performers.
In the sarugaku noh guilds, there seems to have been no traditional number

of members and each guild established its own. In early times this could extend

from as few as ten players to as many as thirty. Later it became much more

formalised and we will consider its shape in a moment. So far as the new members

of a sarugaku noh guild were concerned, the players always demanded a stiff

entry fee and often dispensed with an audition entirely – but, then, we must

remember that the companies were so professional that nobody who was not

highly talented would even have dared to apply, for fear of losing face. In 1350 the

fee was at least the equivalent of sixty or seventy bushels of rice for each member

of the Upper Group of the guild, which usually consisted of six actors, so we arc

talking about at least 360 bushels of rice, which would be enough to completely fill

a large western family house!

The later organisation of a sarugaku noh guild was quite clearly defined.

There was an ‘upper group’ (or kami za) of six actors, referred to as tayu

(‘trustees’), one of them being the oza, or guild master, who was the head of the

troupe and also of the clan. These terms were virtually synonymous, because any

actor who joined the troupe from outside gave up his original name and was

adopted into the family. After the oza, the other actors were strictly ranked as

second, third, and so on, according to skill and experience. The ‘middle group’

(naha no za) had a leader known as the ichiro (‘most senior’) and no known limit
to its membership. This group consisted of all the musicians and kyogen players

of the company. Finally there was a ‘boys’ group’, which was much less

important and consisted of the male children of all the players of the guild, most of

whom were studying to become actors – it was a guild tradition that a son should if

possible be raised in his father’s trade. They usually began their training at the age

of seven and graduated to the lowest position in either the upper or middle group
at the age of fifteen.

The kyogen players in the ‘middle group’ of a sarugaku noh troupe were

there, as has been explained, because it was customary to perform kyogen farces

between the noh plays in a programme, to lighten what might otherwise have

become a very intense performance. Also, as the archaic language of the plays

became increasingly difficult for the audience to understand, kyogen characters

were introduced in the middle of a noh play to summarise the action in

contemporary speech. When they did this, though, they were not usually intended

as comic relief, and had to be careful to keep their humorous inclinations in check.

Kan’ami and Zeami – the creators of modern noh

The history of noh extends, of course, to modem times but, for our present

purposes, we do not need to pursue it beyond the appearance of the two creators

of ‘modem’ noh – Kan’ami (‘the perfection of Amida’) and his son Zeami (‘the

greatness of Amida’).

Kanze Saburo Kiyotsugu, who later took the name ofKan’ami, was born in

1334, and made his reputation as a noh actor amongst the ordinary uneducated

people of the time. He was outstanding in all branches of his art, as musician,

playwright and actor. His son Zeami tells us that he was able to perform in styles

that appealed to all ranks of society, from high to low,8 and that he always seemed

young on stage, even when he was in fact an old man.? The noh plays he wrote

are full of dramatic tension but they are also extremely moving and have clements
of humour and lively dialogue to carry them along. His willingness to experiment
and his dedication to his art are shown by his importation of the kusemai dance
into the noh play – a significant development, which enlivened the tradition and

opened up new possibilities.
Kusemai was a kind of danced ‘ballad’ that was extremely popular,

particularly in the area around Kyoto. Its name means ‘unconventional dance’ and
it seems to have caught the fancy of the Japanese public because it was rather
jazzy in style and had a powerful syncopated beat. This enthralled them, despite
the fact that they found it ‘strange in the extreme’. However, it clearly did not
appeal to those of a staider and more Confucian tum of mind. The retired emperor
Go-Komatsu, for instance, after having it performed for him three or four times,
declared that it was the music of an age of turmoil and undesirably disturbing to
the spirit. It was usually danced by a beautiful young woman to the beat of a
drum. The dancer, who was dressed in a plain white male costume, often carried a
sword, as well as a fan, and wore a ceremonial male head-dress. The movements of
the dance were also very masculine and part of its appeal may have been the
cross-dressing of the performer, because, although it was sometimes danced by
very beautiful young men, the supreme dancers of the tradition were always
female. In Kan’ami’s day, many kusemai dancers were patronised by the nobility,
and, although they had no guild, and did not fit into any convenient niche in the
social scale – which worried the authorities – they often mixed as entertainers with
people of the very highest rank and treated them on equal, or even positively

familiar, terms.
Despite the primary appeal of the

of kusemai were also important. The performance always contained a strong
narrative clement, taken either from the sagas of clan warfare, like the Heike Saga
(Heike Monogatari), or from legends about Buddhist champions and famous
Buddhist shrines. As a result of this it used a lot of descriptive movement and
mime. Kan’ami was clearly attracted to it by its vigour and its theatrical potential

and realised that it could be incorporated into the structure of the noh play as a

form of narrative to the great advantage of the form. But before he could use it he

needed to understand it thoroughly. This could only be done by studying under a

master of the art and the traditions of kusemai were handed down secretly by

word of mouth from woman to woman within a few specific families. Zeami tells

us that his father learnt the dance from Otozuru, a member of the Kaga women’s

group in Nara. He spent a year doing so and it seems that he chose to study under

a woman because the women dancers’ performances were less harsh and crude
than those of the men.

In the Japanese society of that time it was very daring of Kan’ami, as a man,

to study under a woman – few Japanese men would do it even to-day. It was also
very daring of him, artistically, to consider incorporating the strong, catchy

rhythms of kusemai into the noh play, which had previously been dominated by

a soft, melodic ko-uta style. Nor did he incorporate it immediately. He first

presented it as a separate item in the programme, which was possible because a

sarugaku performance in his day still consisted of several different ‘turns’, of

which the noh play was merely the most important. However, he soon went on to

incorporate kusemai into the noh itself, softening the form, Zeami tells us, so that

it would blend with the current style of sarugaku dancing. By 1374 the dance was

wholly integrated, and gave the company’s performances of noh a unique

‘flavour’. It now forms a significant element in about three-quarters of the noh

plays that are performed and is found, as we observed earlier, in the fourth

sequence of the play, the point where the shite and the chorus are recounting and

enacting the emotional story that lies at the heart of the piece. In most cases it is

kept quite short, so it does not detract from the final fast dance, but in two plays

it appears in an extended form as ‘a play within the play’.

It may have been the originality of his company in the matter of kusemai

that caused Kan’ami to be called in 1374 to give a ‘command performance’ before

the great Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who was then just sixteen years old.

Kan’ami, who had never previously appeared before any Shogun, was 41 years

old at the time, and Zeami, who performed with him, was eleven. The young

Shogun immediately fell in love with Zeami, and his passion for the boy changed

the whole history of noh, because, as a result, he took the company under his

patronage and he and Zeami became lovers – not a new experience for Zeami, who

had been sent up to a local monastery from the age of seven, with all the other

beautiful boys from the village, to exchange his sexual favours for rice and fuel,

which he brought back the next morning for his starving family. Homosexual

liaisons were accepted without question by the Japanese society of the time but

the affair with Yoshimitsu caused some comment at court because the prince had

chosen to associate with an actor – and actors were considered as the dregs of

society. However, Yoshimitsu ignored the courtiers’ reactions and undertook the

education of Zeami in court manners and good taste, turning him into a man of

great restraint and refinement, who carried those characteristics through into all the

plays he wrote and performed,

Kan’ami only enjoyed the benefits of the prince’s patronage for ten years,

because he died in 1384, but Zeami and the Kanze family company continued to

perform at court until 1443, when Zeami died at the age of 80. Throughout his life,

he based his work on what he had learnt from his father, always trying to give the

noh greater narrative power and emotional expressiveness and a more effective

shape. He also endowed it with a ‘literary’ flavour that would appeal to the

courtiers by including references to famous poems and Buddhist writings. So far as

the acting was concerned, he greatly strengthened the role of the shite, paying

particular attention to the kusemai and, on the whole, reduced the importance of

the chorus, which he considered a rather primitive component of the play. He

wrote, composed, choreographed, directed, produced and performed in more than

a hundred plays, all of them dramatic masterpieces and was also famous for his

ability to write pieces for the principal dancers of other companies – by no means

an easy task, since each of them had a distinctive style of his own,

Unfortunately, his later life was not very happy. After Yoshimitsu died in

1408 he received scant attention from the son and grandson who succeeded him,

probably because the whole family had always disapproved of the liaison with an

actor. However, as he started to find his services less in demand, he spent his time

polishing his theories about the noh and writing secret treatises about it to pass on

to his sons and his nephew – although ironically the tradition he created was

eventually continued not by the Kanze troupe at all but by the Komparu clan, one

of whose members, Komparu Zenchiku, had married his daughter. We will look at

some ofZeami’s theories in the next chapter.

NOTES

1 There have however been some ‘official’ women performers of noh since 1900. A
Japanese friend informs me that a Belgian actress, Miss Dupont, played in llagoromo, which is
principally a dance play- see Waley (1921), p 217 – in 1919, whilst the first ‘officially approved’
female performer was Kimiko Tsumura who played At aka in 1939.

2 Like the kyogen stage, as we have already noted. The sacred structure is called a kagura-
den and it is a slightly larger version of the worship pavilion (hai-den) illustrated in Fig 2.

3 Komparu (1983), Chap 16, discusses the properties and provides several illustrations.
4 An excellent translation of Nishikigi will be found in The Translations of Ezra Pound,

Faber, 1953, p. 286. The hand of W.B.Yeats can be traced in it. Yeats later used the piece as the
basis for his own dance-play The Dreaming of the Bones.

5 Nosakusho, in Rimer and Masakazu (1984), p. 149 ff.
6 The following summary of the history of the noh is drawn from P.G.O’Neill’s Early No

Drama, Lund Humphries, London, 1958. I have outlined only the main features.
7 The account quoted will be found in O’Neill, op. cit., pp 75-77.
8 Rimer and Masakazu (1984), p. 124.

9 Rimer and Masakazu ( 1984), p. 57.