2. Language & Form
Play. Japanese Noh drama:
• A highly stylized, abstract, and philosophical type of
Japanese play influenced by Zen Buddhism and
Shinto religious rituals.
• The word "Noh" means "talent" or "skill."
• Noh plays are very austere poetic dramas involving
music, song, dance, and wooden masks.
• The tone of the performances is grave, in keeping with
the tragic character of the represented situations.
3. • A central principle of the Noh drama is "yügen" ("mystery,"
"depth," "darkness," "beauty," "elegance"), the intimation of
a concealed truth, what Zeami Motokiyo defines as "the art
of the flower of mystery."
• Noh plays often involve ghosts or ghostly characters and
emphasize, through symbolism and stylized gestures, the
formal, abstract, and spiritual aspects of human action and
emotion and their consequences.
• Noh plays feature a "Shite" (main figure, hero, the
"doer"), "Waki" (a secondary protagonist/antagonist), and
the "Tsure" (companions of the hero).
• A pine tree painted on the wall is a feature of all Noh
stages.
5. Zeami Motokiyo
(1364-1443)
• Also called Kanze Motokiyo
• He was a aesthetician , actor, playwright and
a drama theorist.
• Son of the itinerant actor Kanami, at the age of
eleven Zeami attracted the attention of the
shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who became his first
major patron.
• Zeami received his education by his father
who was also an actor.
6. • Later Zeami's fortunes fluctuated with changing
political circumstances;
• The father-son team established the Noh
theater.
• He later adapted his style to a mixture of
pantomime and vocal acrobatics that
entertained the japanese for hundreds of
years.
• At the age of seventy, he was banished to a
remote island for two years.
• As playwright, Zeami wrote works of astonishing
poetic resonance, incorporating
myth, legend, and literary allusion into densely
7. Zeami Motokiyo
(1364-1443)
• As drama critic, Zeami produced both practical
instruction for actors and highly theoretical
work which elevates the art of the No theater
to the level of court poetry and linked verse..
• In addition to writing brilliant plays and his
major theoretical work, he wrote practical
instructions for actors to establish the Noh
theatre as a serious art form.
12. Plot
• Heike story begins at the end of the battle at Ichi-no-
tani on Suma bay, Naozane, from the rival Genji
clan, catches sight of an apparently high ranking
warrior of the Heike alone on the shore.
• They have a short battle and Naozane takes down his
opponent and removes his helmet.
• The soldier is a boy of about 17, similar to the age of
his own son.
• At first Naozone wants to spare the life of the
boy, but realizes that other warriors will soon be
coming and will kill him regardless.
13. Plot
• So with tears in his eyes he follows through and
cuts the boy’s head off.
• He later tears a piece of Atsumori’s garment to
wrap his dead, and finds a flute.
• The flute is a symbol of courtly elegance which
was hidden under the boy's body armor.
• Later, he regrets and is disheartened by the
calling that has lead him to commit such a brutal
act. The incident had a great deal to do with
Naozone's later decision to become a Buddhist
monk.
14. Plot
• After killing the exceptionally young warrior, Taira
no Atsumori, in the battle at Ichi-no-
tani, Kumagai no Jirō Naozane, a warrior of the
Genji clan, renounced the world and took the
priestly name Rensei (Renshō), as he was
overwhelmed by the tragedy and realized the
uncertainty of life.
• When Rensei (Renshō) visits the Ichi-no-tani
battlefield to pray for the repose of Atsumori's
soul and looks back on the day, grass cutters
appear, to the music of a flute.
• When Rensei (Renshō) speaks to them, one of
them tells him the story associated with the flute.
15. Plot
• To the suspicious Rensei (Renshō), the man responds
that he has a connection with Atsumori and asks
Rensei (Renshō) to repeat the prayer to Amitabha
Buddha ten times for the sake of Atsumori.
• When Rensei (Renshō) recites the sutra connected
with Amitabha Tathagata, the man implies that he is
the ghost of Atsumori and disappears.
• In the night, the ghost of Atsumori, who looks as he
was on his last day, appears before Rensei
(Renshō), who prays for the peace of Atsumori's soul.
Atsumori is delighted as Rensei (Renshō), who prays for
salvation through mourning. Rensei was a foe but is a
true friend now.
16. Plot
• Atsumori then starts to confess. First, in the kuse he
describes the Heike clan's escape from Kyoto in the
autumn of 1183, their forlorn lives in Suma Bay, and
the decline of the entire clan.
• He then dances while recalling the party in the Ichi-no-
tani camp in the last night of his life. He shows the past
battle scene in which Atsumori came to the beach at
Ichi-no-tani to embark on a boat, but Kumagai called
after him to challenge him to single combat.
• Atsumori leaves asking Rensei (Renshō), whom he
feels like not an enemy but a close friend, to pray for
his soul.
17. Noh play
• In the Noh play "Atsumori" Zeami revisits the
encounter a Suma Bay between Naozone, who is now a
monk named Rensho, and the ghost of
Atsumori, disguised as a grass cutter.
• In the first act Atsumori's ghost shows a love of music
by playing the flute. The flute then opens the
conversation between the monk and the ghost, that
leads to a song recalling the names of famous players.
• The scene is back at the Bay of Suma. It is a highly
poetic landscape with strong a aristocratic culture. This
suggests an analogy of the two characters because
both fled the capital for this remote shore due to
adverse situations.
18. Noh play
• The second act recalls the banquet Atsumori
enjoyed with his family the night before his
death. Atsumori's ghost reenacts the
singing, flute playing, and dancing that took
place.
• The play's structure would fall under ghost drama
but has been altered, and does not strictly follow
Zeami's established style. This is because the
relationship between the two was a tragedy for
both Atsumori and Naozone, who was forced to
kill the boy against his will.
• Also, as Atsumori needs to be saved from
hell, Naozone is desperate to be delivered from
his anguish.
19. Main issues
• Emphasis on pacifist, Buddhist values
• Drama as religious ritual of atonement, meditation
leading to enlightenment
• Role of the arts in supporting and framing the religious
ritual, poetry, flute playing, choral singing
• Play of human transformations and reconciliations:
changes of warrior into priest, enemy into friend
• Symbolic character of the flute-playing reapers at the
opening of the play
• Theme of the fall of the mighty/proud in the defeat of
the Taira at Ichi-noTani
• Theme of the transience and fleeting quality of
earthly power and wealth
20. Contexts
• Play based on traditional narratives about the war between the
Genji/Minamoto and Heike/Taira clans (1180-1185).
• Buddhism, religion based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama
(Buddha), a sage who was active in India sometime between the
6th and the 4th c. BC.
• Buddhism emphasizes the idea of karma (the consequences of one's
actions), the extinguishing of passion/desire, peaceful coexistence
with all living things, and enlightenment (nirvana).
21. Contexts
• Zen Buddhism is a Chinese and Japanese version of
Buddhism emphasizing meditation and self-contemplation
as means of attaining satori (enlightenment).
• Shinto: a traditional religion of Japan emphasizing the
worship of nature spirits and of the ancestors
22. Short life:
“We flowered one day;
but
birth in the human
realm
quickly ends, like a
spark from a flint."
