Plenty of Nothing

For the Enjoyment of the Play

    Several years ago in Kyoto in the fall, the Komparu School from Kaga Province announced the opening of a Noh play performance. It was to run for four days, and although the price of theater boxes was set at ten pieces of silver, they were soon sold out. Furthermore, cash in advance was paid for them.

    At first it was announced that the tragic drama Sekidera Komachi would be presented, and people were greatly excited in expectation of witnessing a performance of this grandest of dramas. But when the hand drummer, for some reason or other, found it impossible to perform his part, the program was changed. Despite the alteration, however, on the opening day even before dawn, people thronged the entrance to the theater. Among them was a man from Edo who had reserved two entire boxes, each of which had cost him ten pieces of silver. In one of them he spread out a crimson rug, and further equipped it with a portable shelf, a low folding screen, and a case for his personal effects. In the back of the box he set up a temporary kitchen, provided with fish, fowl, and a basket of seasonal fruit. In the other box he set up a teakettle, with two pails of water beside it for making tea, one labeled 'Uji Bridge' and the other 'Otowa River.' Seated with him in his boxes were to be seen a physician, a draper, a Confucian scholar, a dealer in imported goods, and a poet; while visible behind them were women from Shimabara, boys from Shijo, prominent entertainers of the city, a masseur, and a ronin. Under the boxes was space for his personal palanquin, a bath, and even a lavatory. Indeed, with such luxurious appointments nothing at all was lacking in convenience for the enjoyment of the play.

Saikaku Ihara, This Scheming World, pages 65-66.

The Briny Sadness of Matsukazé

    About this same time, Honda was attending a performance of Matsukazé at the Osaka Nō Theater in Tennoji-Dogashiba at the invitation of a colleague fond of performing Nō chants himself. It was a production featuring Kanesuké Noguchi from Tokyo as shité with Yazo Tamura assisting him as waki. The theatre stood upon the eastern slope of Uemachi Hill between Tennoji and Osaka Castle. This had been a section of fine villas at the beginning of the Taisho period and was still a secluded area containing high-walled mansions. One of these functioned as a Nō theater under the auspices of the Sumitomo family.

    Most of the guests were merchant princes, and Honda recognized many of them. As for the famous actor, the harsh-voiced Noguchi, Honda's colleague had warned him beforehand that, although his intonation might sound like a goose being strangled, Honda was not by any means to laugh. And he predicted that, ignorant of Nō though Honda was, once the play was underway he would suddenly find himself emotionally aroused.

...

    Although Kanesuké Noguchi wore the mask of a beautiful young woman, his voice had nothing that would recall a woman's charms. It was a voice that made one think of the rasping together of rusty, discolored metal. Furthermore, his recitation was broken by interruptions, and his style of chanting seemed to be tearing the beauty of the words to shreds. But despite all this, the mood inspired was like the outpouring of a dark and ineffably elegant mist, like the sight of a moonbeam shining into a corner of a ruined palace to fall upon a mother-of-pearl furnishing. Because the light passed through a worn and ravaged bamboo blind, the elegance of the shattered fragments shone all the more.

    Gradually, then, his harsh voice became far from irritating. Rather, one had the feeling that only through this harsh voice could one for the first time become aware of the briny sadness of Matsukazé and the melancholy love that afflicts those in the realm of the dead.

Yukio Mishima, Runaway Horses, pages 209-11.

Nō and the Cat's Ears

    Late one morning toward the end of the month, Taeko appeared again. Sachiko was listening to the radio.

    "Yukiko?" Taeko pulled a chair up to the fire.

    "She has gone to Dr. Kushida's."

    "An injection?"

    "Yes." Sachiko had been taking down recipes said to be good for the season. Now someone was reciting a Nō play.

    "Would you turn it off, please, Koi-san?"

    "Wait. Look at Bell." Taeko pointed her jaw at the cat, asleep by Sachiko's feet.

    Bell was drowsing happily in the warmth from the stove. Taeko had noticed that its ears twitched at each drum beat. Only the ears were affected, it seemed, by a reflex of no concern to the rest of the cat.

    "What do you suppose does it?"

    "Very strange."

    They watched, fascinated, as the ears twitched an accompaniment to the Nō, and when the Nō was finished Taeko turned off the radio.

Junichirō Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters, page 385.

Noh Chanting Annoys Tsuda

    O-Nobu still did not come. And of course Mrs Yoshikawa, whom he was awaiting even more eagerly, did not appear either. He was annoyed. The Noh chanting, which he disliked intensely, which someone nearby had been engaged in for quite some time, further irritated him. He suddenly remembered that he had seen a long narrow sign, announcing instruction in Noh chanting, on the two-storey building diagonally opposite the laundry. The second floor seemed to be the place where the practice was going on, and even though it was rather far away the chanting sounded excessively loud. Since he realized full well that he had no right to stop people from doing what they wanted to, he could do nothing whatever about his discontent. He merely wanted to leave the hospital as soon as possible.

Natsume Sōseki, Light and Darkness (1916), page 216.

Sylvia Townsend Warner Listens to a Noh Play

    I sat for a while listening to a No[h] play; [ . . . ] extraordinarily slow, belching, hideous declamation and arioso, both solo and chorus, the very antithesis of the delicacy & poignancy of the text: like Papal Bulls and Papal Pigs roaring, squealing & grunting: and very beautiful snatches of a mad-scene flute; and those wooden hammers urging it on. It is almost unassimilable, would be quite, if it had not an authority of extreme technique & tradition.

The Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner, page 274 (entry for July 5th, 1961).

A.B. Mitford Sums Up the Nô

    The subjects of the Nô are all taken from old legends of the country; a shrine at Miwo, by the sea-shore, marks the spot where the suit of feathers was found, and the miraculously forged sword is supposed to be in the armoury of the Emperor to this day. The beauty of the poetry -- and it is very beautiful -- is marred by the want of scenery and by the grotesque dresses and make-up. In the Suit of Feathers, for instance, the fairy wears a hideous mask and a wig of scarlet elf locks; the suit of feathers itself is left entirely to the imagination; and the heavenly dance is a series of whirls, stamps, and jumps, accompanied by unearthly yells and shrieks; while the vanishing into thin air is represented by pirouettes something like the motion of a dancing dervish. The intoning of the recitative is unnatural and unintelligible, so much so that not even a highly educated Japanese could understand what is going on unless he were previously acquainted with the piece. This, however, is supposing that which is not, for the Nô are as familiarly known as the master-pieces of our own dramatists.

A.B. Mitford, Tales of Old Japan (1871), volume one, pages 163-4.

Botchan on Noh Chanting

    "Listen, I don't need an old lady like you telling me what to do when it's none of your concern. It's my salary, no matter how much it goes up, or down, and mine alone."

    She left the room without another word. Her husband was chanting a passage from some Noh play in a relaxed, mellow voice. The whole point of Noh chanting seems to be to take some lines that you could understand perfectly well on paper and recite them in a ridiculously complicated way to make sure that nobody can understand them any more. How he managed to practice that stuff every night without getting thoroughly sick of it was a mystery to me. Anyhow I had much bigger things to worry about.

Botchan by Natsume Sōseki, page 119, Joel Cohn translation.

Clara Whitney at the Nō

    The opera is called the ancient Nō and is so old that no one can understand the meaning its language is supposed to convey. The present-day shibai, or "theatre," was originally taken from the Nō. The actors we saw occupied a high, roofed platform, at the rear of which sat the orchestra composed of old men who performed on the tsuzumi [drum] and fue [flute], occasionally indulging in a sort of suppressed yell, which was the most curious combination I have ever witnessed. The costumes were elegant and ancient and -- would you believe it, old journal -- each man wore a bustle! The hakama [skirt worn over kimono for formal wear] were chairo, a lovely cream-color, and the kimono green with large gold crests all over. Each one had a narrow white band around his head -- the hair of which, alas for romance, was cut in foreign style. The band was tied behind and fell down below their waists in long streamers. Others had long black hats which spring back from the face. When they stood still or posed they remained as unmoving as statues, and when they walked it was with measured stately tread -- not a stride, but a peculiar pushing or shuffling of the feet which is unique to the Nō. I was quite charmed with the steady stately motion. We stayed to witness some quarrels and sword drawing, during which, however, no blood was shed, and came away. I see why young Japanese do not like the Nō. It is because there is no bloodshed, nothing exciting or stirring -- in fact, it is too tame.

Clara A.N. Whitney, Clara's Diary: An American Girl in Meiji Japan, page 150, entry dated November 19, 1877.

George Bernard Shaw at the Noh

Recently I was lucky enough to find a couple of volumes of the Tourist Library, a series of booklets published in English by the Japanese Board of Tourist Industry in the 1930s to educate visitors to Japan about aspects of the culture. Volume 2 is Japanese Noh Plays: How to See Them, by Toyoichirō Nogami, the distinguished Noh scholar. Professor Nogami's introduction includes an unexpected guest appearance by George Bernard Shaw, who visited Japan in the early Thirties and saw a Noh performance. I don't know if this anecdote is well known among Shaw's fans, but it should be placed against his line "Noh drama is no drama", which he obviously delivered during a quip-off with Oscar Wilde, and which would lead you to suppose that he got nothing out of the performance. The thrust stage is an important part of twentieth-century stagecraft, and you should take Nogami at his word when he says Shaw found the Noh stage very interesting.

When Mr. Bernard Shaw paid a sudden visit to Japan last spring, to the president of the Kaizō-sha (publishers), who was racking his brains how to amuse him, I gave the advice that he should entertain Mr. Shaw with the Noh. This I arranged. I was given orders to make a programme consisting of a Noh play and a Kyōgen. Trusting to the dramatist's appreciative power, and not a whit discounting it, I chose Tomoe, which is the most characteristic Noh among all Noh plays. To this I added the Kyōgen Ka-zumō (The Wrestling with a Mosquito). This is an orthodox Noh in which the First Actor (Shite) performs alone throughout almost the whole play, and the Second Actor (Waki) withdraws himself beside the pillar and watches the play just as the audience does, after he has finished his small part. The First Actor takes the rôle of a beautiful Amazon who persuades her lord to commit suicide, and in the meantime fights against swarming enemies. But on the stage there is none but the Second Actor, the representative of the audience, who plays the rôle of a Travelling Monk. And here is put in practice the principle of extreme theatrical economy, which I wanted Mr. Bernard Shaw to see. The Actors were Mr. Kintarō Sakurama, a leading actor of the Komparu School, and Mr. Shin Hōshō, my teacher of utai. Mr. Shaw watched the play with great interest, and I sat beside him with Mr. Yone Noguchi who explained it to him. When the performance was over, Mr. Shaw stood up and made a speech in response to the remarks made by the president. The day was cold, snow having fallen on the previous day and it was not yet melted. He said: "I have not been at all incommoded by the cold this afternoon. The delightful performance of this Noh drama has made me forget it. It has been a performance of great interest to me. Although I am seventy-seven years of age, I am still learning, and I have been given the opportunity of learning something new and interesting this afternoon. I wish to say that for the artist, however old he may be, there is always something to learn. Although I naturally did not understand a word of the performance this afternoon, I think I may venture to say that I understood its artistic intention, and I followed it with very great interest."

Mr. Shaw said that he was more interested in the Noh than in anything else he saw in Japan. Above all he greatly admired its unique stage construction. This is exactly what Monsieur Claudel praised. And this is indeed one of the strikingly characteristic features of the Noh play. Therefore, in this brochure I begin with the Stage.

I like the sudden switch to the topic of the weather three quarters of the way through the anecdote, a clear case of ki shō ten ketsu narrative structure.