Asia Dance Channel

Noh Theatre
27-28 January 2010
PJLA, Petaling Jaya

By Lee Yong Mun
Photographs courtesy of Pentas Project Theatre Production

Pentas Project Theatre Production organised a two-day lecture and demonstration about Noh Theatre by Professor Richard Emmert,a professor who had studied, taught and performed classical Noh drama in Japan since 1973. He is a certified Kita school Noh instructor, and has studied all aspects of Noh performance but with a special concentration in movement and music.

In Tokyo, Professor Richard Emmert directs a semi-intensive, on-going Noh Training Project for English speakers. In summers, he leads the intensive three-week Noh Training Project in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania sponsored by the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble. Emmert frequently writes and speaks about Noh both in Japanese and English, in and out of Japan, and co-authors with Monica Bethe a series of Noh performance guides, which are published once a year from the National Noh Theatre in Tokyo.

On the very first day, Professor Emmert had introduced us basic concepts of Noh Theatre and a screening of video documentation of actual Noh performance.

According Emmert, Noh is one of the oldest continually performed theatre forms in the world. The art form combines dance, chant, music, and mask in a powerful and stately performance experience requiring intense inner concentration and physical discipline.

Noh developed into its present form during the 14th and 15th centuries under the leadership of the distinguished performer-playwrights Kannami and his son Zeami. Zeami, in particular, wrote numerous plays, which are still performed in today’s classical repertory of some 250 plays. He also wrote a number of once secret works, which explain the aesthetic principles governing Noh and gave details on how the art should be composed, acted, directed, taught, and produced.

Noh flourished during Zeami’s time under the patronage of the military shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. Later during the Edo period (1603-1868), Noh became the official performance art of the military government. Feudal military lords throughout the country supported their own troupes and many studied and performed the art themselves. With the societal reforms of the Meiji period (1868-1912), Noh lost its governmental patronage and the practitioners were left to fend for themselves. Although the art form nearly disappeared, lots of performers regrouped, found private sponsors on their own, and began teaching the art to amateurs so that it slowly began to flourish again. Today, like many classical performance forms throughout the world, Noh cannot be described as a popular art among the average Japanese. Yet its supporters are enthusiastic and its professional performers are highly trained and extremely busy performing and teaching throughout the country. There are today approximately 1,500 professional performers who make their living largely through performing and teaching Noh.

Emmert adds that there are five categories of Noh plays. In order, these feature gods, warriors, beautiful women, miscellaneous (notably mad-women or present-time) figures, and supernatural beings (demon or animal). During the Edo period, a full day’s program consisted of the ritual piece Okina-Sanbaso followed by one play from each category in the above order. One Kyogen play would be presented between each Noh. Of the five categories, the women plays are the slowest in tempo but the most poetic, and of the highest level in expressing yugen, an aesthetic term suggesting quiet elegance and grace, and subtle and fleeting beauty.

Emmert also elaborated on the characters of Noh. The main character is called the shite who sometimes appears with one or more companion characters called tsure. In many plays, the shite appears in the first half as an ordinary person, departs, and then appears in the second half in his true form as the ghost of a famous person of long ago. The former is called the maejite and the latter, the nochijite. They are traditionally performed by the same actor. The secondary actor, the waki, is often a travelling priest whose questioning of the main character is important in developing the story line. He also often appears with companion waki-tsure. An interlude actor called ai or ai-kyogen also often appears as a local person who gives further background to the wakito help audience understand the situation of the shite.

In Noh, there are usually eight players; the jiutai sits at the side of the stage to narrate the background, the story and its mood. They sometimes describe the character’s thoughts and emotions or even sings lines for the characters. The instrumentalists in Noh are known as hayashi and they sit at the back of the stage. The instruments consist of a transverse flute (nohkan), an hourglass-shaped drum held at the shoulder (kotsuzumi), a slightly larger hourglass-shaped drum placed on the lap (okawa or otsuzumi), and a barrel-shaped drum placed on a small floor stand and played with two sticks (taiko). The rhythms and melody of these instruments follow highly prescribed systems. One particularly unique feature is the use of drum calls (kakegoe), the shouts or cries of the drummers, which serve as signals between the drumming and singing. These drum calls also add an important element to the sound texture of the performance, creating the mood; and together with the chant, establishes the tempo.

Emmert also said that Noh is not a performance of realistic theatre. Rather, its movement is highly stylized and prescribed. While some gestures have specific meaning, others serve as an abstract aesthetic expression to convey the emotions of the main character. All of Noh can be described as dance. Sometimes there is very little movement as dramatic tension is built mainly through narration. At other times there is strong, vigorous movement. Movement takes place sometimes to the singing of the chorus or sometimes to purely instrumental music. In general, deliberateness, brevity, suppression and abstraction are important features of Noh movement.

After screening several videos on Noh, Emmert continued to say that makeup is not used in Noh. Rather, delicately carved masks are often used by the shite, main character or the tsure attendant. These masks are considered objects of superb beauty as well as powerful means of expression. Therefore all characters, portraying women and old men wear masks as well as supernatural beings such as ghosts, deities, demons, and divine beasts. In general, masks either have a more or less neutral expression, or portray a very strong emotion. The former, in fact, allows the mask a variety of expressions with the play of light and shadow on it as the actor changes slightly the tilt of the mask. Even in roles in which an actor does not wear a mask, the sense of a masked face is evident. This is called hitamen, literally meaning “direct mask.”For this, the actor does not use his face for realistic expression but rather for mask-like expression. The waki, the secondary character or accompanying wakizure never wear masks as they are meant to be middle-aged men living in the present-time of the play.

Emmert also said that costumes in Noh are elaborately made with gorgeously dyed silk and intricate accessories. These costumes reveal the type of character being portrayed and follow prescribed conventions as to their use. Still, there is much variety. The detail of design, the colour combinations, the richness of texture, and the strength of form give Noh its visual impact. All characters, whether rich or poor, young or old, male or female, are beautifully costumed.

Another important part of Noh is the stage. The main part of the stage is a curtain-less square with a bridgeway leading to it from backstage. At the end of the bridgeway there is a hanging curtain which swings up and back allowing the characters to enter and exit. Stages were traditionally outside and covered with a long sloping roof. From the late 19th century, they have been mainly moved indoors. These inside stages are open on two sides in a kind of semi-theatre-in-the-round. The pine tree painted on the back wall of the stage represents the tree through which Noh was, by legend, passed down from heaven to mankind. In Japanese culture, the evergreen pine has come to be an important symbol of longevity and unchanging steadfastness.

On the second day Emmert demonstrated Noh in Japanese. As the only performer, he had to take all the roles and to sing all the chants. His brilliant performance won him a thunderous applause from the appreciative audience.

Emmert also performed Noh in English since one of the audiences on the floor asked for it. Professor said that it is not easy to translate a Noh performance from Japanese to English because he has to consider the whole fluency starting from the melody to the tone and tune of speaking and singing. After both languages of Noh were demonstrated, Emmert showed us the masks and instruments that he owned. He also demonstrated the way to use the instruments such as the nohkan, kotsuzumi, okawa and taiko.

The two-day event ended with a question and answer session to clear any doubts that the audience had. And Emmert was certainly busy entertaining tons of questions from the floor!

This is proof that the audience were attentive and showed genuine interest in the lecture and demonstration. This is a wonderful way to educate and expose Malaysians to foreign cultures. I look forward to more of such events from Pentas Project Theatre Production.