Japanese Noh Theater

Japanese Noh and Global Theaters

The Japanese Noh performance by David Crandall and other members of Theatre Nohgaku was absolutely amazing and I enjoyed it very much.  In addition, the discussion with Boston University professor Carrie Preston was enlightening and I learned so much about Noh theatre in Japan and it’s influence around the world. 

At the beginning of this performance and the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, David Crandall and the members of Nohgaku started off with a Noh performance about a story of a young lord who meets a diver at a beach and they have a short relationship leading to a son.  However, because of the lord’s high status their relationship will not allow the lord to bring her back to his home and make her his bride.  Eventually he leaves her and she lives alone with the son.  One day there is a jewel sent to the lord’s family but is dropped into the sea and lands in the dragon place deep underwater.  The lord wants to retrieve this jewel at all cost and returns to the diver to ask her to get the jewel back.  The diver knowing this is a task that will sacrifice her life asks the lord to promise her that he will take the son and raise him as his own.  The lord promises and she dives into the water to steal the jewel from the dragon palace. 

The Noh performance by David Crandall is about her retrieval of the jewel from the dragon palace and her suicide in order to successfully return the jewel to the lord.  The dragon’s palace is dangerous and highly guarded. Once the diver invaded the palace, she was able to leave with the jewel but being followed she was forced to stab herself because they will not chase her once she is dead.  She then sends a signal to the lord and son of her body with the jewel and dies in a swirl of scarlet in the ocean. 

This initial Noh performance was for the audience including myself, confusing and we could not understand nor interpret the Noh chants and movements taking place.  However afterwards, they performed an English version of the same story and explained and discussed the movements, the chants, and the purpose of the tools.   It was as if a light bulb had struck everyone and we understood the rest of the performance!  In the English version, there were phrases such as “thrusting forward through blooming waves” throughout the chant that were very melodramatic and yet aesthetic.  The end of the performance with the diver “swirling in scarlet” was devastating yet so beautiful.  The chants when translated in English were very detailed about setting such as Old Man Goriot and Washington Square and there were very beautiful aesthetic phrases that were also sad and sometimes gruesome at the same time.

There were many interesting points throughout the Noh performance.  The Nohgaku members described how the speaking is formalized, expressive, and stylized.  The chants come from deep in the chest within and contain much emotion.  The dynamic singing in the Noh performances known as tsuyogi is both powerful and exciting since tsuyoi does mean strong.  Each school teaches different styles of Noh and David Crandal apart from the others was taught at a different school and it was interesting to see the different movements used when both schools performed their own version of the play mentioned above. 

There are different instruments used in the Noh performance, in particular 4 main ones.  The first is a lacquered flute that is usually resting in a lacquered case.  The flute is commonly played by a dead person in the performance thus it has a sleeve inside that purposely makes it out of tune.  When Mr. Crandall played a short song with the flute for us, it was obvious that the sleeve inside it made the flute sound more, airy, windy, eerie, shrill, lonely and even dead-like.  The second instrument used is a small hourglass drum.  The drum is usually made of cowhide that enjoys humid environments and can have a variety of tones.  The strings attached to the drums are loose and when squeezed, it changes the pitch.  The drum also has a partner, the third instrument a larger hourglass drum.  This drum is made of horsehide and likes dry weather, has one sound, and the strings are tight.  It makes a shot gun-like sound and is painful to play with the bare hand.  It makes patterned beats with the small drum.  The fourth instrument is the taiko drum.  The drum is used in some plays but not s commonly as the others.  It has a barrel body and is beat with sticks instead of hands.  All the drums have a drum call/sound attached to them by the user (the user screams out a sound while playing).  The drum calls can tell you what beat you are on, a form of communication between drummers, and can effect the mood of the play such as higher calls for higher tension or slower quieter calls for a quieter performance.  The fan also can be considered a tool that acts as a sword, shield, scooping up jewelry, etc.  It is an extension of the actor.

As I mentioned before, the big hourglass drum in particular is painful to play.  The Nohgaku performers mention how in fact, Noh performance is in general a form of torture the sitting position with folded legs and the feet tucked underneath is harsh and it hurts.  Musicians and some performers must sit in this position for up to an hour long! 

The movement in Noh performances is interesting.  The body weight is forward on the balls of the feet.  The feet barely separated from the ground besides the occasional stomps.  The feet slide on the floor for several reasons.  One of which is safety since the stage is a high rise and when wearing a mask, the user’s view is limited.  In addition the feet stay on the ground to harness the energy from the earth to go through the body during the performance and be expended through the mask.  The Noh movements are repetitive and stylized and 90% of them have no meaning in particular.  The Noh actors perform those movements with specific masks, the other actors chant, the music plays and from there the audience can make a meaning behind the movements and that is the best part of Noh theatre! The audience is the one who must interpret and put together everything they see, hear, and feel and make a meaning for themselves. 

In addition to movement, the Noh masks were really interesting.  Each mask can convey not only one emotion but multiple ones depending on the audience's interpretation of the actor’s movements.   The mouths of the facemasks are usually slightly open to create the emotion of crying, anger, happiness, and more.   The emotion that the audience perceives depends on the actor’s movements.  The special trait of the masks is that they can transmit emotion through wood.  The mask that usually has a closed mouth is a tengu mask that is a non-human character.  Masks are usually not work eye to eye but a bit higher on the face because it looks better. 

When putting on a mask or removing it, the actor must always sit politely.  This is respect for the Noh craft as well as their props and pieces.  It is also putting value into what they are doing and helps them understand what step they are on in the performance.  There are many Noh plays in Japan as well as foreign ones.  There is a performance that David Crandall did with his members called At the Hox Well where the main character was an Irish old man.  There are also many others around the world.

After watching the Noh performance and listening to the discussion, I realized that Noh theatre is very melodramatic.  Most plays are tragic and very sad and the performances are filled with many gestures.  Gestures are an important part and even though they are repetitive they can be interpreted in many ways by the audience to express meaning.  The music is also important for setting the tone and the flute with it’s eerie sound adds to the melodramatic effect.  There are also themes of social class such as the first story mentioned, and death, and the aesthetic beauty of death.  The chants of the plays are very detailed, beautiful, and highly descriptive and the audience can feel the emotion emanating from the actors.  I am very glad to have been able to watch this Noh performance because I have a better understanding of its traditions and background.  If I  were to go to Japan and watch a Noh theatre, I would not have as much understand and appreciation for the actors as I do now with the knowledge that I have.