NO THEATRE

no also spelled Noh, traditional Japanese theatrical form and one of the oldest extant theatrical forms in the world. No, meaning talent or skill, is unlike Western narrative drama. Rather than being actors or representers in the Western sense, no performers are simply storytellers who use their visual appearances and their movements to suggest the essence of their tale rather than to enact it. Little happens in a no drama, and the total effect is less that of a present action than of a simile or metaphor made visual. The educated spectators know the story's plot very well, so that what they appreciate are the symbols and subtle allusions to Japanese cultural history contained in the words and movements. No developed from ancient forms of dance drama and from various types of festival drama at shrines and temples that had emerged by the 12th or 13th century. No became a distinctive form in the 14th century and was continually refined up to the years of the Tokugawa period (16031867). It became a ceremonial drama performed on auspicious occasions by professional actors for the warrior classas, in a sense, a prayer for peace, longevity, and the prosperity of the social elite. Outside the noble houses, however, there were performances that popular audiences could attend. The collapse of the feudal order with the Meiji Restoration (1868) threatened the existence of no, though a few notable actors maintained its traditions. After World War II, however, the interest from a large number of educated youth led to a revival of the form. There are five types of no plays. The first type, the kami (god) play, involves a sacred story of a Shinto shrine; the second, shura mono (fighting play), centres on warriors; the third, katsura mono (wig play), has a female protagonist; the fourth type, varied in content, includes the gendai mono (present-day play)in which the story is contemporary and realistic rather than legendary and supernaturaland the kyojo mono (mad-woman play)in which the protagonist becomes insane through the loss of a lover or child; and the fifth type, the kiri, or kichiku (final, or demon), play, in which devils, strange beasts, and supernatural beings are featured. A typical no play is relatively short. Its dialogue is sparse, serving as a mere frame for the movement and music. A standard no program consists of three plays selected from the five types so as to achieve both an artistic unity and the desired mood; invariably, a play of the fifth type is the concluding work. Kyogen, humourous sketches, are performed as interludes between plays. A program may begin with an okina, which is essentially an invocation for peace and prosperity in dance form. Three major no roles exist, the principal actor, or shite; the subordinate actor, or waki; and the kyogen actors, one of whom is often involved in no plays as a narrator. Each is a specialty having several schools of performers, and each has its own acting place on the stage. Subsidiary roles include those of attendant (tsure), of a boy (kokata), and of nonspeaking walk-on (tomo). Accompaniment is provided by an instrumental chorus (hayashi) of four musicianswho play a flute (Nokan), small hand drum (ko-tsuzumi), a large hand drum (o-tsuzumi), and large drum (taiko)and by a chorus (jiutai) consisting of 810 singers. The recitation (utai) is one of the most important elements in the performance. Each portion of the written text carries a prescription of the mode of recitationas well as of accompanying movement or dancealthough application of this may be varied slightly. Each type of dialogue and song has its own name: the sashi is like a recitative; the uta are the songs proper; the rongi, or debate, is intoned between chorus and shite; and the kiri is the chorus with which the play ends. About 2,000 no texts survive in full, of which about 230 remain in the modern repertoire. Zeami Motokiyo (13631443) and his father, Kan'ami Kiyotsugu (133384), wrote many of the most beautiful and exemplary of no texts, including Matsukaze (Wind in the Pines) by Kan'ami and Takasago by Zeami. Zeami also formulated the principles of the no theatre that guided its performers for many centuries. His Kakyo (The Mirror of the Flower, 1424) detailed the composition, the recitation, the mime and dance of the performers, and the staging principles of no. These constituted the first major principle of no, which Zeami described as monomane, or the imitation of things. He advised on the selection of properly classical characters to be portrayed, from legend or life, and on the proper integration of the visual, the melodic, and the verbal to open the eye and ear of the mind to the supreme beauty he crystallized in the second main principle, yugen. Meaning literally dark or obscure, yugen suggested beauty only partially perceivedfully felt but barely glimpsed by the viewer. Two factors have allowed no to be transmitted from generation to generation yet remain fairly close to earlier forms: first, the preservation of texts, containing detailed prescriptions of recitation, dance, mime, and music, and, second, the direct and fairly exact transmission of performing skills. On the other hand, no was subject to changing preferences of new audiences, and new styles and patterns inevitably evolved. Further, there was constant refinement of received forms to express more clearly or intensely the objectives of no, but these were always only minor deviations from traditional form. Even the differences between the five schools of shite performers represent only slight variations in the melodic line of the recitation or in the patterns of the furi or mai mime and dance. In the 20th century some experimentation has taken place. Toki Zenmaro and Kita Minoru produced no plays that had new content but adhered to traditional conventions in production. Mishima Yukio, on the other hand, took old plays and added new twists while retaining the old themes. Experiments to elaborate the humorous kyogen interludes and the attempt to add (in the manner of Kabuki theatre) a long passage onto the stage through the audience and a strong spotlight on the shite received little public acceptance. Instead, no has been sustained in the postwar period by theatregoers who have come to enjoy it not simply for its status as a classic theatre or because of innovations but as a perfected and refined contemporary stage art.