The Noh Plays of Japan (3 page)

It also happens that one is suddenly sent for to perform at a Sh
ō
gunal feast or the like. The audience is already in a "climax-mood"; but "introductory" Noh must be played. This is a great difficulty. In such circumstances the best plan is to tinge the introduction with a
nuance
of "development." But this must be done without "stickiness," with the lightest possible touch, and the transition to the real Development and Climax must be made as quickly as possible.

In old times there were masters who perfected themselves in Noh without study. But nowadays the nobles and gentlemen have become so critical that they will only look with approbation on what is good and will not give attention to anything bad.

Their honorable eyes have become so keen that they notice the least defect, so that even a masterpiece that is as pearls many times polished or flowers choicely culled will not win the applause of our gentlemen today.

At the same time, good actors are becoming few and the Art is gradually sinking towards its decline. For this reason, if very strenuous study is not made, it is bound to disappear altogether.

When summoned to play before the noble gentlemen, we are expected to give the regular "words of good-wish" and to divide our performance into the three parts, Introduction, Development and Climax, so that the pre-arranged order cannot be varied...But on less formal occasions, when, for example, one is playing not at a Sh
ō
gunal banquet but on a common, everyday
(yo no tsune)
stage, it is obviously unnecessary to limit oneself to the set forms of "happy wish."

One's style should be easy and full of graceful
y
Å«
gen,
and the piece
*
selected should be suitable to the audience. A ballad (
koutai)
or dance-song
(kuse-mai)
of the day will be best. One should have in one's repertory a stock of such pieces and be ready to vary them according to the character of one's audience.

In the words and gestures (of a farce, ky
ō
gen) there should be nothing low. The jokes and repartee should be such as suit the august ears of the nobles and gentry. On no account must vulgar words or gestures be introduced, however funny they may be. This advice must be carefully observed.

Introduction, Development and Climax must also be strictly adhered to when
dancing
at the Palace. If the chanting proceeds from an "introductory-mood," the dancing must belong to the same mood...When one is suddenly summoned to perform at a riotous banquet, one must take into consideration the state of the noble gentlemen's spirits.

IMITATION
(Monomane).

In imitation there should be a tinge of the "unlike." For if imitation be pressed too far it impinges on reality and ceases to give an impression of likeness. If one aims only at the beautiful, the "flower" is sure to appear. For example, in acting the part of an old man, the master actor tries to reproduce in his dance only the refinement and venerability of an old gentleman.
*
If the actor is old himself, he need not think about producing an impression of old age...

The appearance of old age will often be best given by making all movements a little late, so that they come just after the musical beat. If the actor bears this in mind, he may be as lively and energetic as he pleases. For in old age the limbs are heavy and the ears slow; there is the will to move but not the corresponding capacity.

It is in such methods as this that true imitation lies...Youthful movements made by an old person are, indeed, delightful; they are like flowers blossoming on an old tree.

If, because the actor has noticed that old men walk with bent knees and back and have shrunken frames, he simply imitates these characteristics, he may achieve an appearance of decrepitude, but it will be at the expense of the "flower." And if the "flower" be lacking there will be no beauty in his impersonation.

Women should be impersonated by a young actor.... It is very difficult to play the part of a Princess or lady-in-waiting, for little opportunity presents itself of studying their august behavior and appearance. Great pains must be taken to see that robes and cloaks are worn in the correct way. These things do not depend on the actor's fancy but must be carefully ascertained.

The appearance of ordinary ladies such as one is used to see about one is easy to imitate...In acting the part of a dancing-girl, mad-woman or the like, whether he carry the fan or some fancy thing (a flowering branch, for instance) the actor must carry it loosely; his skirts must trail low so as to hide his feet; his knees and back must not be bent, his body must be poised gracefully. As regards the way he holds himself—if he bends back, it looks bad when he faces the audience; if he stoops, it looks bad from behind. But he will not look like a woman if he holds his head too stiffly. His sleeves should be as long as possible, so that he never shows his fingers.

APPARITIONS

Here the outward form is that of a ghost; but within is the heart of a man.

Such plays are generally in two parts. The beginning, in two or three sections, should be as short as possible. In the second half the
shite
(who has hitherto appeared to be a man) becomes definitely the ghost of a dead person.

Since no one has ever seen a real ghost
*
from the Nether Regions, the actor may use his fancy, aiming only at the beautiful. To represent real life is far more difficult.

If ghosts are terrifying, they cease to be beautiful. For the terrifying and the beautiful are as far apart as black and white.

CHILD PLAYS

In plays where a lost child is found by its parents, the writer should not introduce a scene where they clutch and cling to one another, sobbing and weeping...

Plays in which child-characters occur, even if well done, are always apt to make the audience exclaim in disgust, "Don't harrow our feelings in this way!"

RESTRAINT

In representing anger the actor should yet retain some gentleness in his mood, else he will portray not anger but violence.

In representing the mysterious
(y
Å«
gen)
he must not forget the principle of energy.

When the body is in violent action, the hands and feet must move as though by stealth. When the feet are in lively motion, the body must be held in quietness. Such things cannot be explained in writing but must be shown to the actor by actual demonstration.

It is above all in "architecture," in the relation of parts to the whole, that these poems are supreme.
^†
The early writers created a "form" or general pattern which the weakest writing cannot wholly rob of its beauty. The plays are like those carved lamp-bearing angels in the churches at Seville; a type of such beauty was created by a sculptor of the sixteenth century that even the most degraded modern descendant of these masterpieces retains a certain distinction of form.

First comes the
jidai
or opening-couplet, enigmatic, abrupt. Then in contrast to this vague shadow come the hard outlines of the
waki's
exposition, the formal naming of himself, his origin and destination. Then, shadowy again, the "song of travel," in which picture after picture dissolves almost before it is seen.

But all this has been mere introduction—the imagination has been quickened, the attention grasped in preparation for one thing only—the hero's entry. In the "first chant," in the dialogue which follows, in the successive dances and climax, this absolute mastery of construction is what has most struck me in reading the plays.

Again, Noh does not make a frontal attack on the emotions. It creeps at the subject warily. For the action, in the commonest class of play, does not take place before our eyes, but is lived through again in mimic and recital by the ghost of one of the participants in it. Thus we get no possibility of crude realities; a vision of life indeed, but painted with the colors of memory, longing or regret.

In a paper read before the Japan Society in 1919 I tried to illustrate this point by showing, perhaps in too fragmentary and disjointed a manner, how the theme of Webster's "Duchess of Malfi" would have been treated by a Noh writer. I said then (and the Society kindly allows me to repeat those remarks):

The plot of the play is thus summarized by Rupert Brooke in his "John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama": "The Duchess of Malfi is a young widow forbidden by her brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal, to marry again. They put a creature of theirs, Bosola, into her service as a spy. The Duchess loves and marries Antonio, her steward, and has three children. Bosola ultimately discovers and reports this. Antonio and the Duchess have to fly. The Duchess is captured, imprisoned and mentally tortured and put to death. Ferdinand goes mad. In the last Act he, the Cardinal, Antonio and Bosola are all killed with various confusions and in various horror."

Just as Webster took his themes from previous works (in this case from Painter's "Palace of Pleasure"), so the Noh plays took theirs from the Romances or "Monogatari." Let us reconstruct the "Duchess" as a Noh play, using Webster's text as our "Monogatari."

Great simplification is necessary, for the Noh play corresponds in length to one act of our five-act plays, and has no space for divagations. The comic is altogether excluded, being reserved for the
ky
ō
gen
or farces which are played as interludes between the Noh.

The persons need not be more than two—the Pilgrim, who will act the part of
waki,
and the Duchess, who will be
shite
or Protagonist. The chorus takes no part in the action, but speaks for the
shite
while she is miming the more engrossing parts of her role.

The Pilgrim comes on to the stage and first pronounces in his
Jidai
or preliminary couplet, some Buddhist aphorism appropriate to the subject of the play. He then names himself to the audience thus (in prose):

"I am a pilgrim from Rome. I have visited all the other shrines of Italy, but have never been to Loretto. I will journey once to the shrine of Loretto."

Then follows (in verse) the "Song of Travel" in which the Pilgrim describes the scenes through which he passes on his way to the shrine. While he is kneeling at the shrine,
Shite
(the Protagonist) comes on to the stage. She is a young woman dressed, "contrary to the Italian fashion," in a loose-bodied gown. She carries in her hand an unripe apricot. She calls to the Pilgrim and engages him in conversation. He asks her if it were not at this shrine that the Duchess of Malfi took refuge. The young woman answers with a kind of eager exaltation, her words gradually rising from prose to poetry. She tells the story of the Duchess's flight, adding certain intimate touches which force the priest to ask abruptly, "Who is it that is speaking to me?"

And the girl shuddering (for it is hateful to a ghost to name itself) answers:
"Hazukashi ya!
I am the soul of the Duke Ferdinand's sister, she that was once called Duchess of Malfi. Love still ties my soul to the earth.
Toburai tabi-tamaye!
Pray for me, oh, pray for my release!"

Here closes the first part of the play. In the second the young ghost, her memory quickened by the Pilgrim's prayers (and this is part of the medicine of salvation), endures again the memory of her final hours. She mimes the action of kissing the hand
(vide
Act IV, Scene 1), finds it very cold:

I fear you are not well after your travel.
Oh! horrible!
What witchcraft does he practice, that he hath left
A dead man's hand here?

And each successive scene of the torture is so vividly mimed that though it exists only in the Protagonist's brain, it is as real to the audience as if the figure of dead Antonio lay propped upon the stage, or as if the madmen were actually leaping and screaming before them. Finally she acts the scene of her own execution:

Heaven-gates are not so highly arched
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees.
(She kneels.)
Come, violent death,
Serve for mandragora to make me sleep!
Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out,
They then may feed in quiet.
(She sinks her head and folds her hands.)

The chorus, taking up the word "quiet," chant a phrase from the Hokkekyo:
Sangai Mu-an,
"In the Three Worlds there is no quietness or rest."

But the Pilgrim's prayers have been answered. Her soul has broken its bonds: is free to depart. The ghost recedes, grows dimmer and dimmer, till at last

use-nikeri
use-ni-keri

it vanishes from sight.

Footnotes

*
For example in
yuku kata shira-yuki ni...shira
does duty twice, meaning both "unknown" and "white." The meaning is "whither-unknown amid the white snow."

*
These dates have only recently been established

†
See p.xxxi

*
Not to be confused with the forged book printed in 1600 and used by Fenollosa.