Japan is known for its unique gardening style, their diverse plants, their food, and their beautifully woven tapestries. Yet, most do not know about the history of their drama. Japanese Noh theatre is one of the most precise and prestigious art forms. It has been this way since the fourteenth century when Zeami first created Noh theatre. Zeami’s most famous plays, such as Kinuta, are still performed today. Japanese drama has not changed much since the fourteenth century because it has made a lasting effect on the culture. Noh theatre had a major influence on fourteenth century Japan and has affected modern day drama.
Fourteenth century Japan was a time of peace for many people. Buddhism had just become a major part of Japanese culture due to the Shogun Yoshimitsu. He became ruler in 1367 at the sapling age of ten (Waley 21). Yoshimitsu needed to distinguish himself from his ancestors and he did this by being devoted to Buddhism, specifically the Zen Sect (21). “Zen Buddhism and the life and teaching of Shinran are popularly identified as typical Japanese Buddhism.” (Takeda 27) However Buddhism, in Japan, is different and unique from Buddhism in other countries because it is considered the “funeral religion” (27). This is mainly influenced by ancient Japanese beliefs of the onryo.
Onryo are grudging and vengeful spirits (27). These spirits come about when they are not properly buried or remembered and cause great unhappiness (27). The belief is that onryo can only be calmed by prayer (27). According to traditional belief, however, thirty-three or fifty years must pass for the spirit to find rest (27). The Japanese believed that when the spirits would find peace they either became hotoke which means “buddha” or sorei, “ancestor go...
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...host is welcomed into Butsu (Pound 97). She finds everlasting peace.
Noh theatre came about at the same time Buddhism started having an influence on Japanese culture. They each affected the other. Noh theatre took the beliefs and the ideas of Buddhism and intertwined it with ancient Japanese beliefs to create a magnificent form of drama. Buddhism took those ancient Japanese beliefs and rituals to make a unique religion. Zeami took all of it and wrote some of the most influential plays of Japan. In fact, Zeami’s Noh plays are classified as the highest classics of Noh drama and of Japanese literature (Tsuchiya 104). Noh drama had a major influence on Japanese culture. A quarter of the eight hundred plays ever written and performed are still performed today (Magill 2423). This shows how important Noh theatre was in not only the fourteenth century, but in present day.
Kabuki theatre has a very long and rich history. It began in the 1600s, around the same time that the American colonies were being founded. A Japanese shrine maiden, Okuni, is credited with creating Kabuki theatre. In its earliest form, Kabuki consisted of large ensemble dances performed by women. Many of these women were prostitutes off stage. Due to the fame and fan base that these prostitutes acquired because of Kabuki, the government in this time banned women from performing onstage. This was done in an effort to protect the public’s morality against what was seen as a form of lewd entertainment (Kabuki History, 1996). After women, the main characters in Kabuki programs, were banned from performing on the stage, men stepped in to continue the Kabuki productions. This change in characters brought about a very important shift in Kabuki. No longer was the focus on beauty and dance. What became important was the skill of the actors, and the drama that they portrayed. This put Kabuki on the road to becoming a dramatic art form, rather than a show of dancing with beautiful women. At the same time, there was a renaissance happening in Japan, which promoted and encouraged arts and culture. This is known as the Genroku period.
Akira Kurosaw’s Seven Samurai is a film that encompasses various ideologies in order to allow the audience to understand the lives of Japanese people during the 1600’s. The film delves deep in social issues of the roles of the people within the society, the expectations as well as the obligations within the respected castes and elements within groups of ; suffering, working together, protecting family and working for the better good of the community.
Among the most classic Japanese Nō dramas is none other than Izutsu, or “The Well-Cradle” as often translated in English. Written by Zeami who is perhaps the most influential playwright to the Nō Theater, Izutsu was composed around the late 14th century during the Muromachi Period in Japan. In comparison with other Nō plays, it is relatively simple in nature as there are only three roles that need to be played—shite, waki, and ai—and the story is very characteristic of the typical Nō drama (Araki and Brazell, 143). Because a woman assumes the shite role, Izutsu is classified as a third-category play or katsura-mono (wig play), and since the play deals with supernatural happenings, or in the play’s case, the remaining spirit of a woman, it is also considered to be a mugen (phantasmal) nō (Tyler, 124). Through a careful analysis of Izutsu, one may not only observe its fascinating story, but also learn about its structure, aesthetic themes, and associations with the Buddhist religion that easily make this play one of the greatest Nō dramas of all time.
Yu, Han. “Memorial on Buddhism”. Making of the Modern World 12: Classical & Medieval Tradition. Trans. Richard F. Burton. Ed. Janet Smarr. La Jolla: University Readers, 2012. 111-112. Print.
Throughout history artists have used art as a means to reflect the on goings of the society surrounding them. Many times, novels serve as primary sources in the future for students to reflect on past history. Students can successfully use novels as a source of understanding past events. Different sentiments and points of views within novels serve as the information one may use to reflect on these events. Natsume Soseki’s novel Kokoro successfully encapsulates much of what has been discussed in class, parallels with the events in Japan at the time the novel takes place, and serves as a social commentary to describe these events in Japan at the time of the Mejeii Restoration and beyond. Therefore, Kokoro successfully serves as a primary source students may use to enable them to understand institutions like conflicting views Whites by the Japanese, the role of women, and the population’s analysis of the Emperor.
Hare, Thomas B. (1986). Zeami's Style: The Noh Plays of Zeami Motokiyo. Standford, California: Stanford University Press.
In the early nineteenth century there was a trend toward portraying all types of evil—such as torture, incest, and sadism—on stage, and after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 a movement was started to adapt Kabuki to the spirit of the modern world. Be that as it may, even as Kabuki has created in style and substance, it holds a hefty portion of the components it obtained amid the 1700s, from the physical virtuosity of its performers to the utilization of beautiful ensembles and portrayal of shocking occasions. Because of the emphasis in Kabuki on performance, there is little interest among scholars in offering critical analyses of its most important plays; many feel, in fact, that to read a Kabuki play in print gives the reader no indication of its artistic power. Pundits writing in English about seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Kabuki have in this manner tended to focus on the social and chronicled setting encompassing the improvement of the shape or on imaginative components, for example, acting, organize procedures, and music. The Kabuki play that has garnered the most critical attention is Chūsingura (1748; The Treasury of the Loyal Retainers). This play, about retainers' loyalty to a feudal lord even beyond his death, contains all the elements that make for great, melodramatic Kabuki theater,
The Heian period(794-1185), the so-called golden age of Japanese culture, produced some of the finest works of Japanese literature.1 The most well known work from this period, the Genji Monogatari, is considered to be the “oldest novel still recognized today as a major masterpiece.”2 It can also be said that the Genji Monogatari is proof of the ingenuity of the Japanese in assimilating Chinese culture and politics. As a monogatari, a style of narrative with poems interspersed within it, the characters and settings frequently allude to Chinese poems and stories. In addition to displaying the poetic prowess that the Japanese had attained by this time period, the Genji Monogatari also demonstrates how politics and gender ideals were adopted from the Chinese.
I believe that universally, theater is the concentration of passing down history, whether factual or mythical, to future generations paired with various degrees of artistic dignity. Like many other staged performances, the root of Noh is based off of a storytelling tradition, enhanced or exaggerated to be viewed by a wider audience. In the end, it was supposed to be somewhat entertaining, the viewer perhaps receiving a more dramatic interpretation of a past tale accompanied by dance, music, and visuals. In general, another characteristic not as significant from the original literatures and stories that seeps its way into Noh are the religious undertones and shrinking the distance between the world of the living and the world of spirits. In Zeami’s Atsumori, the play concerns characters from a scene in a probably already overdramatic depiction in Heike Monogatari, bringing in a single frame from Japanese military history into a different context. Sumidagawa has a slightly different way of coming into existence, since it does not depend so heavily on an exact picture from Ise Monogatari, and is only loosely associated with it. Nevertheless, both Atsumori and Sumidagawa have interesting ties to literature from earlier periods that make each unique in their presentation.
Japanese culture has always been highly influenced by religions; such as, Buddhism. So, it is not very shocking to find out that even Noh Theater, a form of acting, is influenced by religion. Buddhism is the following of the teachings of Buddha, who encourages his students to live by the “Four Noble Truths” and to get rid of the bad spirits in their lives. Noh theater is the oldest form of traditional theater (video, 0:13) and it started in Japan, which makes sense that a lot of the ideas for the performances would have a strong example of Buddhist faith. Another reason that it would show signs of Buddhism is the fact the Elites/ Nobles supported the idea of a religion or belief that encouraged everything to remain “status quo”. When watching Noh performances it is important to notice what the actors are portraying and the effects Japanese culture and religion have had on the performance.
Shirane Haruo. et al. Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1900. New York: Colombia University Press, 2002. Print.
Although it started out as just another type of dance, Kabuki eventually emerged into an important and fascinating theatre where elaborate makeup and costumes combined to put on entertaining performances for audiences throughout the centuries.
Kernodle, George R. "The Theater Of Exaltation: Modern Tragedy And Poetic Drama." Kernodle, George R. Invitation to the Theatre. New Yory: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1967. 217-223.
"Drama and Theater in the Ancient World." Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World. Facts On File, 2007. Ancient and Medieval History Online. Web. 10 Nov. 2015. In the early ancient time people preformed without scripts or line. Bogucki states “The nature of these performances was often dictated by geography.” They were very spontaneous. Their performances occurred to celebrate victory in battle, births marriages, and also as well to mourn the dead, or fertility. When it comes to theater it was based off religious elements. The performance where made to honor or appease a God. In India the earliest performances where based off sacred texts. Dramatic presentations became common in Ancient India, Japan, and China. They often used makeup, mask, costumes, and other conventions. Most performances where done outside. The theaters resembled modern time. According to Bogucki “The development of theater as the word is understood in modern times began with the ancient Greeks and Roman.” A lot of the plays performed by the ancient Greeks where Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The Greeks distinguish tragedies and comedies with comic play. The Ancient Romans continued the Greeks tradition. The Romans as well performed the Greeks play, but produced their own