Noh Theater
Aesthetic terminology
Zeami and Zenchiku describe a number of distinct qualities that are thought to be essential to the proper understanding of Noh as an art form.
- Hana (花, flower): the true Noh performer seeks to cultivate a rarefied relationship with his audience similar to the way that one cultivates flowers. What is notable about hana is that, like a flower, it is meant to be appreciated by any audience, no matter how lofty or how coarse his upbringing. Hanacomes in two forms. Individual hana is the beauty of the flower of youth, which passes with time, while "true hana" is the flower of creating and sharing perfect beauty through performance.
- Yūgen (幽玄): an aesthetic term used to describe much of the art of the 13th and 14th centuries in Japan, but used specifically in relation to Noh to mean the profound beauty of the transcendental world, including mournful beauty involved in sadness and loss.
- Kokoro or shin (both 心): Defined as "heart," "mind," or both. The kokoro of noh is that which Zeami speaks of in his teachings, and is more easily defined as "mind." To develop hana the actor must enter a state of no-mind, or mushin.
- Rōjaku (老弱): the final stage of performance development of the Noh actor, in which as an old man he eliminates all unnecessary action or sound in his performance, leaving only the true essence of the scene or action being imitated.
- Myō (妙): the "charm" of an actor who performs flawlessly and without any sense of imitation; he effectively becomes his role.
- Monomane (物真似, imitation or mimesis): the intent of a Noh actor to accurately depict the motions of his role, as opposed to purely aesthetic reasons for abstraction or embellishment. Monomane is sometimes contrasted with yūgen, although the two represent endpoints of a continuum rather than being completely separate.
- Kabu-isshin (歌舞一心, "song-dance-one heart"): the theory that the song (including poetry) and dance are two halves of the same whole, and that the Noh actor strives to perform both with total unity of heart and mind.
A Biographical Sketch of Zeami
The elder of the young men was Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, aged 17, the powerful dynastic shogun and ruler of all Japan, and he had experienced an early form of Noh performed by Kanami Kiyotsugu and his twelve year old son Zeami Motokiyo.
It is due to Yoshimitsu's patronage and interest in early Noh that this dramatic form was able to develop into the highly refined, serene theater which we can see today.
The early origins of Noh theater were mostly folk-type forms of rustic entertainment; Sarugaku, which was connected to Shinto rituals, Dengaku, a kind of acrobatics with juggling, which later developed into a type of song-and-dance, Chinese-derived dances, and recited and chanted ballads which formed part of the oral tradition of the people.
By the middle of the fourteenth century, these various sources seem to have been combined into a form of theater recognizable to modern audiences as Noh, although just what those early plays were like is hard to say. There are plays believed by scholars to be by Kanami (1333-1385), but they seem to have been heavily revised by his son Zeami (1363-1443), and no surviving play can be securely dated to before their era.
Zeami is the prime figure in Noh, having written a vast quantity of plays for his troupe to perform, many of which are still regularly performed to this day. He also wrote a very famous treatise in 1423 on the skills and methods necessary for a Noh actor, and that document is still valid study for young actors.
What Zeami, inspired by his father, managed to create, was a theater of the Muromachi period (1336-1573), written in the upper-class language of the fourteenth century, but which looked back to the supposed Golden Age of the Heian Period (794-1185), by basing plays on people, events and even poetry of that era creating texts of astonishing richness and opacity.
One reason for this is that there is a grandeur and beauty in the plays not to be found elsewhere. Indeed, the wordyuugen, meaning that which lies below the surface, with connotations of nobility, reserved elegance and classical refinement is often used about Noh, and it especially applies to several plays about the Heian period poetess and great beauty Ono no Komachi in old age, when she has lost her looks and her court position, but still appears dressed in silks and satins of restrained hue.Noh exists today in a form almost unchanged since Zeami's day, and while the repertoire may have shrunk from the over one thousand plays in the Muromachi period, there have been several plays written over the years, at least one of which, "Kusu no Tsuyu", written in the late nineteenth century, is often performed.
There is also a kind of abstraction in Noh which was centuries more advanced than in the west, and indeed it is discouraged to appear to imitate the external forms of people and objects too closely, concentrating rather on the essence or soul which the actor will attempt to recreate.
One of the most striking aspects of the Noh is that the shite, the main actor, may wear a mask, as may his companions, or tsure. This occurs when the main character is an old man, a youth, a woman, or a supernatural character. Tsure accompany the shite in certain plays, and if they represent one of these groups, they will also be masked, but the shite will not wear a mask if his character is an adult male.
Kokata, or boy actors, never wear masks, nor do waki, the secondary characters who appear first on stage to set the scene, and meet the main actor. Masks are carved from wood, often cedar, which is then gessoed and painted, and include some of the most moving works of sculptural art in Japan, and, since there are so many different types, it takes a certain familiarity with them to recognize specific types.
The other ubiquitous prop is the fan, which in a symbolic theater such as Noh, can represent all manner of other objects, such as bottles, swords, pipes, letters walking sticks and so on.
The play will be performed on a stage open on three sides, and with a painted backboard representing a pine tree behind. A sort of walkway, called the hashigakari leads onto the stage right position from an entrance doorway at right angles to the backboard. Along the hashigakari are three small pine trees, and these define areas where the actor may pause to deliver lines, before arriving on the main roofed stage, which is about six metres square.
Ranged along in front of the backboard is a group of musicians whose instruments include a flute, a shoulder drum, a hip drum and sometimes a stick drum. The musicians are responsible for the otherworldly, strange music which accompanies dance and recitation alike. Again at right angles to the backboard, at extreme stage left, there is the chorus of eight to twelve chanters arranged in two rows and it is their job to take over the narration of the story, or the lines of the main character if he is engaged in a dance.
These elements all contribute to a cohesive whole which creates a richly textured background against which the play is enacted, and since no scenery, few props and only a small cast appears, the imagination of the audience is left to roam freely.
In general, Japanese Noh plays are not very dramatic, although they are beautiful, since the text is full of poetical allusions and the dances, though slow, are extremely elegant. It is this very beauty which makes Noh a living art form still, over six hundred years after it developed, and which has caused all subsequent Japanese theatrical forms to draw on aspects of Noh. Kabuki, for example, has lifted complete Noh plays into its vernacular, as well as deriving many of its technical aspects of performance from Noh.
The Japanese Noh also antedates many developments in contemporary theater, such as no scenery, symbolic use of props and the appearance of non-actors on the stage.
The Noh theater still speaks to audiences today, as evinced by the crowds which still rush to buy tickets for performances at the National Noh Theater, and at the five theaters belonging to the five troupes of Noh. It is a truely timeless artform, which speaks to modern audiences as it did to the noblemen and women of the Muromachi period.
Paul Binnie, July 2001
(updated by Dieter Wanczura in March 2009)
(updated by Dieter Wanczura in March 2009)
Zeami also sees the flower as a metaphor for viewing a performance. The flower sheds its petals and goes through many different stages in what it looks like, starting from a bud, to disappearing completely, and this is a visible process. Similarly, in front of an audience we see a theatrical event before hand as if it didn’t exist, it then bursts into life on the stage before once more disappearing. The flower is important to Zeami as he feels that this allows us to truly understand what the performance is.
Then we come to the concept of Yugen which he defines as ‘a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe… and the sad beauty of human suffering’. This can be simply related to the flower as a metaphor, the flower is so visually enticing when alive; yet Zeami believed that when a flower begins to die the process is all the more so. Zeami, perhaps somewhat controversially, saw human suffering in the same way. Noh Theatre portrayed human life as it is; so assuming that pain is a process all must undergo, some believe that human suffering in its own way, is beautiful.
His Dramatic Life
Zeami was probably born in 1363 south of the erstwhile capital Nara, perhaps in Yûzaki, not far from the venerable and ancient temple complex, Hôryûji. His father, Kannami, was the head of a troupe of players of sarugaku (the ancestor of noh) and was related to several of the leaders of rival troupes in the Yamato area. Kannami was a successful actor and played to appreciative audiences far from home as well as nearby in Nara. His troupe was obliged to appear in certain official performances at religious institutions annually in Nara. Kannami's troupe caught the eye of important officials in the capital Kyoto, to the north, and in 1374, he was called upon to perform before the young shogun, Yoshimitsu. This was likely the occasion when Zeami first came into contact with his most important patron, the shogun himself. Zeami seems to have been a favorite of the Yoshimitsu, who was only about five years his senior. The shogun showed Zeami extraordinary favor, and incurred the criticism of certain aristocrats for it, but this does not seem to have impeded Zeami's career. If some aristocrats considered him beneath their notice, others were impressed by the boy, and he was even afforded the opportunity to compose linked verse with a celebrated poet and minister of state, Nijô Yoshimoto. Perhaps through these exalted connections in Kyoto Zeami gained an education unusual for someone of his social class. He is known to have spent some time at a major esoteric Buddhist temple southeast of Kyoto, Daigoji, and a high cleric there, Mansai, mentions him and events touching on his troupe's fortunes occasionally in his diary.
In 1384, after Kannami died while traveling in eastern Japan, Zeami was charged with the leadership of his troupe. Although facts about his life in these early decades are scant, we do know that he performed before the shogun in 1394 and again, twice, in 1399. Each of these performances was connected with important political spectacles for the shogunate, and Zeami's performances on such occasions are indications of his success in maintaining patronage among the élite. Zeami was, all the same, unable to monopolize shogunal patronage, and he faced a challenge from a much admired rival, Inuô Dôami. Dôami was the most celebrated actor in another style of sarugaku, that of the province of Ômi, that originated closer to the capital than Zeami's Yamato sarugaku. Zeami was acutely aware of the differences between Ômi and Yamato sarugaku, and he apparently made great efforts to master the techniques of such rivals in order to strengthen his own tradition. We see evidence of this in his initial writings on performance, Fûshi kaden (Transmitting the Flower Through Effects and Attitudes), the first parts of which were written between 1400 and 1403. In Fûshi kaden, Zeami unambiguously praises the aesthetic of yûgen, a prime virtue of the actors of Ômi sarugaku. He does this even while maintaining the importance of his own Yamato sarugaku lineage, which was best known for dramatic imitation, or monomane.
Records of events in Zeami's life are rare in the first decades of the fifteenth century, but we do have a growing body of texts on performance, patronage and training, Fûshi kaden, as well as celebrated texts such asKakyô (A Mirror to the Flower, ca. 1424), Kyûi (Nine Ranks, late 1420s), and Shûgyoku tokka (Pick Up a Jewel and Take the Flower in Hand, 1428). These texts give us a perspective on Zeami's aesthetic aims as well as his increasing interest in Zen. There are also other types of texts among Zeami's writings from this period, including some on technical issues in singing (e.g., Fushizuke shidai, Technical Specifications for Setting a Melody, undated), on training actors and overseeing a troupe (Shûdôsho, Learning the Profession, 1430), on how to compose for the stage (Sandô, Three Courses, 1423) and on musical genre (Go on, Five Sorts of Singing, undated). The last of these serves as an anthology of noh songs, and contains a large number of individual pieces arranged by category, including the previously mentioned
We have little precise information on when Zeami composed his most famous plays, but because some of them are mentioned in the texts mentioned above, we do have dates by which a number of them must have been performed. Among these are, by 1419, Tôru and Sekidera Komachi; by 1423, Aridôshi, Atsumori, Higaki,Kiyotsune, Sanemori, Tadanori, Takasago, and Yorimasa; and by the mid-1430s, Koi no omoni, Hanagatami,Hanjo, Izutsu, Kinuta, Semimaru, Taema and Yashima. In the same texts, we find similar dates for a number of other plays that Zeami either revised or had a part in composing, such as Kayoi Komachi and Matsukaze (by 1423). A group of playscripts, moreover, is still extant in Zeami's own hand, some by him, some by other playwrights. Among these are Eguchi (autograph ms. dated 1424, see also JPARC's Eguchi Holograph page),Tomoakira (ms. dated 1427), Yoroboshi (ms. dated 1429).
After Yoshimitsu's death in 1408, Zeami does not seem to have retained the strong patronage of the shogunate. The next shogun, Yoshimochi, favored another actor, Zôami, whose roots were in dengaku, a cousin of sarugaku. Zeami himself seems to have had a high regard for Zôami, referring to his performance of a certain piece as "chillingly beautiful." Even without direct shogunal patronage during these years, Zeami remained a popular performer, and there are records referring to wealthy commoners who commissioned him for performances offered up to the gods at certain shrines in Kyoto.
Once Yoshimochi died in 1428, however, Zeami's fortunes changed. The next shogun, Yoshinori, took a strong interest in Zeami's nephew, Onnami. During these years, Zeami's line was stripped of various rights and honors, his eldest son and principal heir, Motomasa, was killed (perhaps murdered), and another son, Motoyoshi, took the tonsure. In 1434, Zeami was exiled to Sado Island, northwest of the mainland of Honshû. Why such a harsh punishment was leveled against the more than seventy-year-old actor remains a mystery. Perhaps it was because of a dispute about who should control the legacy of Kannami and Zeami's troupe. Whether this was the reason or not, one suspects that Zeami had little regard for Onnami's acting. In fact, in the late 1420s, Zeami begins the practice of transmitting texts on performance not to lineal descendants, but rather to his son-in-law, Konparu Zenchiku. Among the most important of them to have been transmitted this way is Shûgyoku tokka (Pick Up a Jewel and Take the Flower in Hand).
In addition to the performance notes discussed above, Zeami can be accounted the author of a fascinating memoir, Sarugaku dangi (Conversations on Sarugaku), although technically this text was recorded by his son, Motoyoshi. It seems likely that Zeami may have returned to central Japan slightly before his death in 1443. His final composition is a set of songs composed on, or about, Sado, entitled Kintôsho.
In 1384, after Kannami died while traveling in eastern Japan, Zeami was charged with the leadership of his troupe. Although facts about his life in these early decades are scant, we do know that he performed before the shogun in 1394 and again, twice, in 1399. Each of these performances was connected with important political spectacles for the shogunate, and Zeami's performances on such occasions are indications of his success in maintaining patronage among the élite. Zeami was, all the same, unable to monopolize shogunal patronage, and he faced a challenge from a much admired rival, Inuô Dôami. Dôami was the most celebrated actor in another style of sarugaku, that of the province of Ômi, that originated closer to the capital than Zeami's Yamato sarugaku. Zeami was acutely aware of the differences between Ômi and Yamato sarugaku, and he apparently made great efforts to master the techniques of such rivals in order to strengthen his own tradition. We see evidence of this in his initial writings on performance, Fûshi kaden (Transmitting the Flower Through Effects and Attitudes), the first parts of which were written between 1400 and 1403. In Fûshi kaden, Zeami unambiguously praises the aesthetic of yûgen, a prime virtue of the actors of Ômi sarugaku. He does this even while maintaining the importance of his own Yamato sarugaku lineage, which was best known for dramatic imitation, or monomane.
Records of events in Zeami's life are rare in the first decades of the fifteenth century, but we do have a growing body of texts on performance, patronage and training, Fûshi kaden, as well as celebrated texts such asKakyô (A Mirror to the Flower, ca. 1424), Kyûi (Nine Ranks, late 1420s), and Shûgyoku tokka (Pick Up a Jewel and Take the Flower in Hand, 1428). These texts give us a perspective on Zeami's aesthetic aims as well as his increasing interest in Zen. There are also other types of texts among Zeami's writings from this period, including some on technical issues in singing (e.g., Fushizuke shidai, Technical Specifications for Setting a Melody, undated), on training actors and overseeing a troupe (Shûdôsho, Learning the Profession, 1430), on how to compose for the stage (Sandô, Three Courses, 1423) and on musical genre (Go on, Five Sorts of Singing, undated). The last of these serves as an anthology of noh songs, and contains a large number of individual pieces arranged by category, including the previously mentioned
We have little precise information on when Zeami composed his most famous plays, but because some of them are mentioned in the texts mentioned above, we do have dates by which a number of them must have been performed. Among these are, by 1419, Tôru and Sekidera Komachi; by 1423, Aridôshi, Atsumori, Higaki,Kiyotsune, Sanemori, Tadanori, Takasago, and Yorimasa; and by the mid-1430s, Koi no omoni, Hanagatami,Hanjo, Izutsu, Kinuta, Semimaru, Taema and Yashima. In the same texts, we find similar dates for a number of other plays that Zeami either revised or had a part in composing, such as Kayoi Komachi and Matsukaze (by 1423). A group of playscripts, moreover, is still extant in Zeami's own hand, some by him, some by other playwrights. Among these are Eguchi (autograph ms. dated 1424, see also JPARC's Eguchi Holograph page),Tomoakira (ms. dated 1427), Yoroboshi (ms. dated 1429).
After Yoshimitsu's death in 1408, Zeami does not seem to have retained the strong patronage of the shogunate. The next shogun, Yoshimochi, favored another actor, Zôami, whose roots were in dengaku, a cousin of sarugaku. Zeami himself seems to have had a high regard for Zôami, referring to his performance of a certain piece as "chillingly beautiful." Even without direct shogunal patronage during these years, Zeami remained a popular performer, and there are records referring to wealthy commoners who commissioned him for performances offered up to the gods at certain shrines in Kyoto.
Once Yoshimochi died in 1428, however, Zeami's fortunes changed. The next shogun, Yoshinori, took a strong interest in Zeami's nephew, Onnami. During these years, Zeami's line was stripped of various rights and honors, his eldest son and principal heir, Motomasa, was killed (perhaps murdered), and another son, Motoyoshi, took the tonsure. In 1434, Zeami was exiled to Sado Island, northwest of the mainland of Honshû. Why such a harsh punishment was leveled against the more than seventy-year-old actor remains a mystery. Perhaps it was because of a dispute about who should control the legacy of Kannami and Zeami's troupe. Whether this was the reason or not, one suspects that Zeami had little regard for Onnami's acting. In fact, in the late 1420s, Zeami begins the practice of transmitting texts on performance not to lineal descendants, but rather to his son-in-law, Konparu Zenchiku. Among the most important of them to have been transmitted this way is Shûgyoku tokka (Pick Up a Jewel and Take the Flower in Hand).
In addition to the performance notes discussed above, Zeami can be accounted the author of a fascinating memoir, Sarugaku dangi (Conversations on Sarugaku), although technically this text was recorded by his son, Motoyoshi. It seems likely that Zeami may have returned to central Japan slightly before his death in 1443. His final composition is a set of songs composed on, or about, Sado, entitled Kintôsho.
Another Biographical Sketch
Zeami was born in 1363, during the Namboku-cho era, as the oldest son of Kannami, who was the favored star in the Yamato-yoza (four sarugaku performance groups in the Yamato region). His childhood name was Oniyasha, and his true name was Motokiyo.
When he was eleven years old, he performed the role of shishi (a lion) with his father in a Noh performance competition in Imakumano. Beginning with this performance, Zeami was recognized for his talents and became a star actor. Also, at this performance, he met the young shogun of the Muromachi Shogunate, Yoshimitsu Ashikaga, and was invited to serve Yoshimitsu intimately thereafter. Yoshimoto Nijo, who was the most sophisticated members of the culturati of that time, also favored Zeami and provided him with the knowledge of Japanese classics, such as the Kokinshū and renga poem (linked verse).
In Zeami's day, the shogun and aristocrats were quite important as patrons for newly emerging arts. Therefore, it was a great opportunity for Kannami and Zeami to be recognized by the shogun. Regarding his relationship with Yoshimitsu as a "peg boy," Masako Shirasu, a writer who also learned Noh, notes in her book "Zeami," that "pederasty was neither unusual in Zeami's time nor considered unhealthy as it is today. It was not considered sexual degeneracy but rather was the extreme expression of the attachment between master and apprentice. Ancient Japanese pederasty did not seek feminine beauty in naive boys but recognized boys as the symbol of youth and beauty and sought the ideal of maleness within them. Among Buddhism monks, there was a story of a monk who decided to enter the priesthood because he found a personified Kannon (Deity of Mercy) within a beautiful boy." She continues that "Zeami was not a person who indulged himself in the love of Yoshimitsu. He was a clever boy full of curiosity. In his writings, he showed his appreciation for his debts to Yoshimitsu, but he was not particularly boastful of his relationship with the shogun, and of course he did not attempt to take advantage of the shogun's patronage."
Shortly after Zeami turned twenty, his father, Kannami, passed away while he was traveling for a performance in Suruga (in present-day Shizuoka Prefecture). From that time on, Zeami became the leader of the Kanze group in deed and in name and managed the group as theshite, who was the stage director and the protagonist. He arranged and improved his father's repertory dramas as well as created many new Noh dramas.
Although enjoyed favor in his own life, he suffered over the matter of choosing a successor. Since he was not blessed with a child, he adopted a child, so-called Onnami, who was a son of Zeami's younger brother, Kanze Shiro, Zeami started to think of carrying on the tradition of his performance art and to write "Fūshi kaden." This was a sort of guide written for his successors to sustain the highest status in the world of Noh, while it is recognized as a book of quintessential art theory today.
Zeami and his wife were finally blessed with three children, the oldest son, Juro Motomasa, the second son, Shichiro Motoyoshi, and a daughter, who later became the wife of Komparu Zenchiku. Zeami suffered between favoring his blood-related son, Motomasa, and favoring the Shiro/Onnami family since Onnami, Zeami's nephew and adopted son, was once determined as his successor. Ultimately, Zeami handed down the "Fūshi kaden" to Motomasa, when it was completed in 1418.
Although Zeami was once favored by the shogun Yoshimitsu, their relationship changed over the years. Yoshimitsu came to favor Zeami's rival Noh actor, Inuoh, in his last years and ranked "Dohami (Inuoh) as the best sarugaku actor." However, after Yoshimitsu's sudden death from illness, Yoshimochi, who was a member of the culturati and familiar with Zen Buddhism, became the next shogun. The new shogun favored Zohami, a dengaku actor, instead of Dohami.
In 1428, Yoshimochi died and Yoshinori became the sixth shogun. Zeami's adopted son, Onnami, performed the grand Noh performance for Yoshinori's accession to shogun, instead of Zeami. From there on, Onnami became the leader of the Noh world, and the Kanze group split into the mainstream of the Onnami group and the anti-mainstream of the Zeami and Motomasa group. Around this period, Zeami's second son, Motoyoshi, entered the priesthood probably out of despair regarding his future. Two years later, the first son, Motomasa, passed away in his early thirties while performing in Ise (in current Mie Prefecture).
After losing his successor Motomasa, Zeami mentally relied on Komparu Zenchiku, his son-in-law. In his very last years, Zeami passed down "Noh as a philosophy," including the theory of Noh performance, to Zenchiku.
During such a period, another ordeal came to Zeami. In 1434, seventy-two-year-old Zeami was suddenly expelled from the capital city of Kyoto and was banished to Sado Island (in present-day Niigata Prefecture). It is unknown why the government expelled him because no official record was left about his exile. The fact is barely known through the existence of his letters to Zenchiku and "Kintoh-sho," his travel notes from Sado.
In 1441, the sixth shogun, Yoshinori, was murdered, and Yoshimasa Ashikaga assumed the position of the eighth shogun. Onnami however maintained his privileged star position. The current Kanze School is the lineage of Onnami.
No one knows when and where Zeami passed away. According to the tradition of the Kanze family the date was 1443. If this is true, he was eighty-one years old at his death. It is said that he probably died in Sado Island.
http://www.the-noh.com/en/zeami/index.html
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Photo from National Noh Theatre
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http://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_037.html
MORE:
| What is "Noh"? | For Noh Beginners | Origins and history | Composition of Noh | Shite-kata | Other Roles | Stage | Noh Masks |
| Props | Vocal | Music | Noh Dance | Movement Patterns | Costumes | What is Kyōgen |
| Props | Vocal | Music | Noh Dance | Movement Patterns | Costumes | What is Kyōgen |
Noh is a theatrical art form that has been handed down through generations and been labeled one of the worlds oldest performing arts. It has also been designated an “Intangible Cultural Heritage” by UNESCO. Noh is a total art form comprised of drama, music and dance elements. While often compared to western opera, the differences can be quite startling. Due to the use of masks in noh masks, one can call noh a “mask drama.”
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