Theatre History I:
Ritual to Renaissance:
Noh Theatre
Wednesday, November 11
Instructor: Allison Leadley
Today’s Agenda
• Review (Monday’s Class)
• Noh Plays: Types and Structures
• Staging Noh: The Noh Stage and Properties
• Dōjōji (A Feminist Reading of a Noh Play)
Review
Question: What are some adjectives that you
remember from the last lecture that are
associated with Noh performance?
Review: Noh’s Theatrical Predecessors
- Shinto inspired forms of shamanistic
ceremonies and dances
- Masked dance dramas in the court
- Travelling troupes (like that which Kan’ami
originally belonged to)
Review: The Influence of Chinese
Culture?
- Masked dance dramas in court (bugaku,
gigaku)
- Buddhism
- Confucianism
Review: The Influence of the Shogun?
-Ashikaga Yoshimitsu
-Kan’ami
-Zeami
Review: Noh’s Effects
yugen or “mysterious beauty” – a mood of
quietness, meditation, and aesthetic
gratification
ran-i or “the sublime” – a feeling of ecstasy and
exaltation produced by exceptional artistry
As the emphasis in Noh theatre is not on any
unfolding action or suspense, Noh theatre is not
grounded in intricate plotting but instead,
exists to create mood, emotion, and a spiritual
state
Most plays are dominated by a single, powerful
emotion summarized by the harmony of
instrumental and vocal music, dance and
gesture, and poetry
Types of Noh Plays
Noh plays are grouped into five categories
according to subject matter
1. God plays celebrating an auspicious religious
event
2. Warrior plays in which the protagonist is usually
a slain warrior whose ghost returns to relieve
human suffering
3. Woman plays (“wig plays” )
4. “Living person pieces” which deal with
madness, obsession, or unbridled passion
5. Demon plays
Question: What “type” or category of play
would you classify Dōjōji as?
As the plays are quite short (and, as original
performances would not have been as
elongated as today) an evening of Noh theatre
would have consisted of each of the five plays
with one short comedic play (kyogen)
performed in between each
(Like satyr plays performed at the City Dionysia)
Kyogen:
Emphasizes comic inversions of social roles
and stereotypical behavior
Differences between Noh and Kyogen:
Kyogen =
No masks
No chorus
Reserves song and dance for comedic effect
Scripts use a “brocade style” that weaves
together well-known stories, poetry, and
Buddhist references
This can make it difficult to translate Noh
Theatre for Western audiences (Greenwald
likens this to a play that combines literary
allusions to the bible, Shakespeare, and
Arthurian legends)
Characters in a Noh Play: The Shite and
Waki
The Shite: “the doer” – this character is the
protagonist
Waki: translates to “listener” or “sideman”
(usually the first character to appear and
establish the dramatic situation)
Question: Who is the shite in Dōjōji? Who is the
waki?
Other Important Players
The Chorus: 8 – 15 members
-no particular identity (unlike
Greeks)
-can describe action or take on
shite’s
lines
-(kneeling) to the audience’s right
Question: How would you describe the
function of the chorus in Dōjoji?
Other Important Players
The Musicians: play flute and drums, located
upstage in front of the painted tree
The Stage Assistants: Responsible for handling
props, straightening costumes, or prompting actors.
While visible to the audience, they are unobtrusive
Question: How would you describe the role of the
stage assistants in Dōjōji?
Becoming the Character
Monomanae
-concept introduced by Zeami in his writings
-Is not like Western mimesis
-Western mimesis = imitation of an action
(Aristotle)
= representational
-Zeami’s monomanae = non-representational
= physical
Becoming the Character: Acting Style
The Noh acting style can be described as gestic
Gender and class are defined not by realistic
imitation, but by conventionalized gesture,
movement, and costume
Contemporary Gestic Performance?
Other Gestic Elements in Noh?
Elin Diamond
Reads Brecht through feminist lens: alienation
renders the social construction of gender apparent)
-a single character performed by several actors
-dialogue that cites other literary works
-masks that do not fully hide the actor’s face
-costumes that do not emphasize the actor’s
gender, class, or physical body (Note, not to be
confused with how costume symbolizes a character)
Contemporary Gestic Theatre?
The Noh Mask
For Zeami, the mask allows the actor to become
another character; his body body becomes a
vessel inhabited by another “essence” which
resides in the mask
The Noh Mask
Scholars estimate that there were originally about
60 different types of Noh masks; today, that
number is approaching 200
Usually, it is only the shite who wears a mask
Believed that they were introduced to enhance the
yugen of performance – hide the unattractive
aspects of the actors face to make the aesthetic
beauty of Noh stronger
A Selection of Noh Masks
The Noh Mask
However, the mask does not cover the actor’s
face entirely – often, will see a bit of the actor’s
own flesh
Actor is to imbue the mask with emotion using
subtle movements (tilting the head up or down)
Manipulating the Noh Mask
The Noh Stage
-A raised wooden stage with a roof held up by four pillars
-No special stage settings or lighting (only minimal stage properties)
-Empty ceramic jars beneath stage floorboards to enhance the
stomping of feet
-Painted tree on the back wall representative of the “epiphany pine” –
where a god-possessed priest once danced
A bridge connects the stage with the curtained “mirror room” where
the actors prepare; this bridge is also seen as a passage that connects
this world to the spirit world
The Noh Stage
Dōjōji
Question: Who can provide a summary of the play’s events?
(To help you along, the characters):
The abbot of Dōjōji
Two priests of the temple
Two temple servants
A dancer (later, the serpent demon)
Question: Were there any elements that felt “familiar”?
There are a few characteristics of Dojoji that make it
particularly memorable for scholars and audiences:
1. The hypnotic dance rambyōshi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLu9927A8YQ
2. The large bell prop (and the risky stunt at the
play’s climax)
3. The lack of clear resolution at the end
How can we interpret this ambiguous
ending…
A Feminist Reading of Dōjōji
“CASE STUDY: The silent bell: The Japanese nō
play, Dōjōji” by Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei
Sorgenfrei is a director, playwright, and scholar
specializing in Japanese theatre and
intercultural theatre
Sorgenfrei on the ambiguous ending:
-the climax is a cosmic battle between demonic
female forces and holy, male forces
-She connects this to the largely femalecentered religion of Shinto in comparison to the
male-centered Buddhist religion
Shinto and Female Sexuality
• Author traces the origins of Noh to the shocking
dance of Uzume, a female Shinto deity (dance to
bring Amaterasu out of hiding)
• She reads the myth through a feminist lens:
-Amaterasu = female identified with the lifegiving sun, her “emotional” and “irrational”
response to the bad behavior of an her unruly
brother threatens to disrupt nature
- Uzume = displays body in a divine striptease
(but not for pleasure of male viewer, she is an active
agent in her sexuality!)
Amaterasu and Uzume’s sexuality is both
powerful and dangerous (and both have
great agency in how they use it!)
Author argues that the play is designed to
insight fear: like the demon lurking in the
river to resurface at any time, Amaterasu
and Uzume’s power (and, by extension)
female sexuality can be contained but not
destroyed
A Warning to Rulers?
Author also looks at the historical moment of
the play text and notes that the position of
aristocratic women were taking a distinct
downward turn
-Posits that this acts as a possible warning to
rulers that chaos could erupt if rulers fail
to guard against all those they had
dispossessed
Dōjōji Today?
Sorgenfrei draws parallels between the
Muromachi period (1336 – 1573) and late 20th
and early 21st century Japan to account for the
play’s popularity today:
-Appear outwardly serene, smooth-running, and
homogenous but filled with contradictions and
turmoil:
But what about Noh’s popularity outside of
Japan?
The Gull: The Stevenson Noh Project
Einstein on the Beach (Robert Wilson
and Philip Glass)
At the Hawk’s Well (W. B. Yeats)