Yesterday, I had the pleasure of witnessing Noh theater firsthand. This past semester, I took a course on Noh (能) that had the bad luck of being scheduled on a Friday afternoon, meaning there were only two students taking it – myself included. Luckily, the class wasn’t canceled, and due to its low student count, the teacher was able to organize an outing to view the Hosho Theater’s early February performances last night.
When most people think of Japanese theater, they usually think of Kabuki (歌舞伎), the showy theater popular with the lower- and middle-classes of the Edo Period (17th to mid-19th century). In Kabuki, the main points are the immaculate make-up, beautiful sets and costumes, and skills of the onna-gata (女形), or men who play female roles. Noh uses masks instead of make-up, has very sparse sets and is deeply rooted in the early traditions of Japanese culture such as local legends, Buddhism and ghost/monster stories.
While Kabuki is the flashy child of Edo’s “floating world” culture, Noh is the older, more refined relative who has imminently more world experience but can be a bit boring at times. The first words out of my professor’s mouth when we enters the Noh theater was “It’s fine to fall asleep. Completely acceptable.” While I thought she was just being Japanese in her acceptance of her foreign students’ probable laziness, it turns out that falling asleep during a Noh performance is kind of par for the course. Though snoozing during Noh is pretty much equivalent to taking a $30 nap, I was both appalled and amused while I watched elderly businessmen and beleaguered daughters of older parents, for lack of a better word, conk out.
Noh in itself is a very calming art. I’m finding most traditional Japanese art are exactly that, in fact. Noh performances consist of a set number of actors “singing,” which is really more chanting with slight changes in octave to the accompaniment of a 10-man chorus and a 3 to 4 man band of flute and drums. The only off-putting thing is that there are attendants that wait in the back corners of the stage whose only job is to collect props and straighten costumes. They will literally walk up to a performer mid-speech and right their jacket or skirt. I can only conclude that due to the strong visual aesthetic in Noh, and almost all Japanese performing arts, that having the actor look perfect is more important than keeping a fourth-wall. Still, to a Westerner like me, it’s only through strict control that I kept from giggling last night; it’s like there is this fussy auntie watching over the actors to make sure they don’t dirty up their nice clothes.
In my Noh course, we watched and studied many pieces, but nothing prepared me for viewing it in real life. A typical Noh program consists of a headline play, followed by a short comedic interlude or kyogen (狂言), and finished up by another full Noh play. Just to give you a time frame, the performance yesterday started at 6pm and didn’t finish until 10:30pm. Luckily, we had studied two of the pieces performed, so even without translations, my classmate and I were able to follow along.
At the risk of sounding cliche, I was blown away by the first performance. I can’t say much for the third, because by that time I was joining the ranks of the elderly businessmen nodding in their seats, but the headline play, Sumida River (隅田川), touted a truly amazing lead actor and an amazing story. I was transported, despite the fact that there are no special effects or set of any kind. For those of you interested in Noh, or just confused, I’ve attached a couple links to videos showing some of the things I’ve attempted to explain.
And last but not least, a Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone celebrating it! Here in Japan, everyone just eats a lot of chocolate. I think I can deal with that cultural difference…
