Japanese Noh - the Tradition Art Form of Drama in Japan - Essay Example

Running Head: Japanese Noh Japanese Noh [Institute’s Japanese Noh The paper gives a detailed account of the tradition artform of drama in Japan known as Japanese Noh. The paper accentuates on various aspects of this form of theater as history of Noh, details about stage, costumes, stage properties, and the influences it has made on western cultures and theaters. Japanese Noh is a significant class of classical Japanese theatre, it is a drama combined with musical effects used to depict certain social issues and ethical considerations. The concept holds its roots deep in Japanese culture since 14th century (Brockett & Hildy, 2007). In these dramas, the characters use masks of different types to emphasize on the characters of theme of drama. Moreover, men act and play their parts as male and female both. The repertory usually limits to a particular number of plays, mostly historical in nature. The duration of the drama is usually long enough to play all day long. During the intervals, for the sake of inducing freshness and maintaining the life in drama, Japanese Noh utilizes a number of short and humorous skits as a break from the original theme. A very significant characteristic of Japanese Noh is the nature of the topics selected as the theme for drama. The choice of the topic is more towards history and the selected topics are more or less of the same kind, pertaining to classical Japanese traditions. The themes of Japanese Noh emphasizes more on the same old cultural, traditional, and historical aspects rather than utilization of some new, fresh, and innovative approaches for the drama. However, some groups have showed development in this regard. They have done plays and dramas on new topics that were never a part of Japanese Noh before. Moreover, as an innovative break from the past, these groups have revived certain historical events as well. Fans of cultural diversity has intermixed Japanese Noh with other traditional and cultural plays as well. History The history of Japanese Noh is very interesting, as it has shown evolution from various forms of classical drama. These forms include a number of famous, traditional, classical, aristocratic, folk and other related shapes of art. A famous artist kan’ami and his family have helped Japanese Noh to get into the form it possesses today. During this evolution, Japanese Noh lost the support and packing of government. However, Japanese Noh and a farce similar to it has considered as the official and national class of drama in Japanese culture (Sosnoski, 1996). Usually, the music performers, musicians, and the actors taking part in the drama or play do not practice altogether. However, every actors taking part in drama, musicians involved, and the chanters performing in choral choose their own styles and rehearse their basic steps, dance movements, choice of songs independent of each other. Sometimes, a senior member takes care of all these chores in order to give harmony to the play. Therefore, the pace of the drama with respect to time and audiences is not the selection of any particular individual but the resultant of performances of all the people taking part in play. In this manner, Japanese Noh illustrates and represents the cultural and traditional artistic transiency known as Sen no Rikyu ichi-go ichi-e (Sosnoski, 1996). Roles The four portions of activities make up the overall performance of stage. These portions include roles playing at the centre of the stage, at the front right of the stages, at the back of the centre, and at the back of the left of stage. Similarly, people playing their part at different position at the stage have different roles. There are four significant classes of actors performing In Noh (Brockett & Hildy, 2007). The first class is of the primary actors known as shite, people who do the most part of the acting. The second class is of the people known as Shitezure, people has the task to support shite in their parts. In this category, waki plays the part twin role of shite, wakizure helps waki in his part, kyōgen actors works in between the intervals of the play, jiutai are the people who renders choral services, and hayashi are the musicians and the people working on different instruments as flute, and three different types of drums. Stage A Noh stage has a marquu whose style holds its roots in traditional Japanese tombs and the material of this pavilion is of wood. There are four mainstays with respect to the position of artists occupied by the artists. Floor has attractive and efficient polish work as to help the actors in changing their positions in a very swift manner. The enhanced resonance of wooden floor becomes possible by the bowl-shaped structures. A picture of pine tree exists as the background, having traditional importance. Most of the stages have a bell hook attached to the ceiling in order to provide bell effect to the play. The bell effect allows the actors to change his position or the new actors to come on the stage during the break. Costumes In any play, costumes hold significant importance. In Japanese Noh, the costumes are of extreme significant. The costumes are usually vibrant and vivid in colors, deeply appreciated by the audiences, and gives meaning to different roles. Costumes for the main actors are exuberant, made of silk, and prodigal (Brockett & Hildy, 2007). However, the helpers have relatively less vivid costumes. In ancient times, the costume wore by actors used to be the clothes of a common person. However, a significant change has developed in terms of styling trends of costumes. Today, the stylish costumes are the significant factors in evaluation of the drama. The instrumentalists and choral performers have formal dresses to wear that resembles to that of a shirt and waistcoat. The other stage performers have black casual dresses. Props The props used in most of the dramas or Noh plays usually consist of a fan. It is an accessory or a prop that every performer on the stage holds independent of the roles. Choral performers and instrumentalists carry their fans while entering and leaving. Several other props such as swords, mallets, hammer, armors, and other accessories and instruments are part of the play as well. However, while dancing fan has significant importance as it illustrates all the props used in the play. When props other than fans have their part in play, it is customary for stage attendants to take care of the introduction and retrieval of implements (Sosnoski, 1996). The stage attendants can be on the stage during the entire performance or can come up on the stage only for a particular scene. Many other stage props having bigger sizes such as boats, wells, altars and other related stuff makes their position on the stage before the start of the play. Actors The Japanese Noh is a very significant and renowned form of aristocratic drama in Japan. This has made an increase in number of actors of Japanese Noh in the country and around the world. According to an estimate, there exist almost 1500 Noh professional actors in Japan at present. It is customary for many actors to start with their Noh training at a very small age. In today’s world, the introduction of women in Noh plays has already taken place, which is a positive sign (Brockett & Hildy, 2007). The studies of Noh have gained sufficient importance with the increase in learners of this art, many a times the artists prefer to learn Noh on both theoretical and practical basis. As mentioned above, Noh have greater inclination towards the history and other Japanese traditional issues rather than introduction of new, innovational, and modern topics to work on. There are five prominent schools of Noh learning and training in Japan as well that aim at providing the best possible theoretical and practical education of this world famous art. A functional society of Noh secures and safeguards the ancient and old traditional and cultural considerations of Noh. Actors usually utilize a patterned advancement and procession in their roles with respect to their growing age. These actors starts from the most fundamental roles or parts of the drama and then progress towards the most difficult ones that require high skills and talents. The talents of actors undergo nourishment with the passage of time. Influences in Western Cultures The art of Japanese Noh has gradually gained significant adoration and encouragement throughout the world. Artists from the West have started taking interest in this form of art for a long time. Moreover, several western artists, theatre performers, musicians and instrumentalists, melody composers, lyricists, and writers have taken inspirations and aspiration form this form of aesthetic transience. The famous people influence by Japanese Noh are Jacques Copeau, Eugenio Barba, Jerzy Grotowski, Heiner Müller, Eugene ONeill, Osvobozené divadlo, William Henry Bell, Benjamin Britten, Carlo Forlivesi, Olivier Messiaen, Iannis Xenakis, David Byrne, Ezra Pound, and William Butler Yeats (Brockett & Hildy, 2007). References Brockett, Oscar G., Hildy, Franklin J (2007). History of the theatre. Allyn and Bacon Publishers. Sosnoski, Daniel. (1996). Introduction to Japanese culture. Tuttle Publishing. 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