Rare days in Japan

by George Trumbull Ladd

“The Nō performance,” says the authority whom I am quoting, “is a very simple kind of dance, whose chief feature is its exclusive connection with ideal beauty, wholly regardless of any decorations on the stage. The old pine-tree we see painted on the back wall of the stage is only meant to suggest to us the time when performances were given on a grass plot under a pine-tree. Sometimes such rudely made things are placed on the stage, but they may be said to represent almost anything, as a mound, a mountain, a house, etc.; their chief aim is accomplished if they can be of any service in calling up even faintly the original to the imagination of the audience. The movements of the performer, in most cases, are likewise simple and entirely dependent upon the flourishes of a folding fan in his hand, for the expression of their natural beauty. Any emotion of the part played is not studiously expressed by external motions and appearances, but carelessly left to the susceptibility of the audience. In short, the Nō performance has to do, first of all, with the interest of a scene, and then with human passion.”

The last sentences in this quoted description are liable to serious misunderstanding; for what the author really means is unfortunately expressed through lack of an accurate knowledge of the value of English words. That anything about this style of dramatic performance is “carelessly left” to the audience, is distinctly contrary to the impression made upon the foreign critical observer of the Japanese Nō. The truth which the writer probably intended to express is the truth of fact; both the ideas and the emotions which are designed for dramatic representation are suggested rather than declaimed or proclaimed by natural gestures; and this is, for the most part, so subtly done and so carefully adapted to conventional rules, that only the most highly instructed of the audience can know surely and perfectly what ideas and emotions it is intended to express.

“[IN ONE CORNER OF THE STAGE SITS THE CHORUS]”

The regular complement of performers in the Japanese Nō is three in number: these are a principal (Shité), and his assistant (Waki); and a third, who may be attached to, and act under, either of the other two (a so-called Tsuré). [In one corner of the stage sits the chorus] (Jiutai), whose duties and privileges are singularly like those of the chorus in the ancient Greek drama. They sing, or chant, a considerable portion of the drama, sometimes taking their theme from the scene and sometimes from the action of the play. Sometimes, also, they give voice to the unuttered thoughts or fears, or premonitions of the performer on the stage; and sometimes they even interpret more fully the ideas and intentions of the writer of the drama. They may give advice or warning, may express sympathy and bewail the woes or follies of some one of the actors; or they may point a moral motif or impress a religious truth. At the rear-centre of the stage sits the orchestra, which is regularly composed of four instruments,—a sort of snare-drum at one end and a flute at the other; while in between, seated on low stools, are two players on drums of different sizes, but both shaped like an hour-glass. As to the function of this rather slender, and for the most part lugubrious orchestra, let me quote again from the same expert native authority. “Though closely related to one another and so all learned by every one of the players, the four instruments are specially played by four respective specialists, each of whom strictly adheres to his own assigned duty, and is not allowed in the least to interfere with the others. Now this music is intended to give assistance to the Shité in his performance, by keeping time with the harmonious flow of his song, which is usually made up of double notes, one passage being divided into eight parts. The rule, however, may undergo a little modification according to circumstances. In short, the essential feature of the music is to give an immense interest to the audience, by nicely keeping time with the flow of the Shité’s words, and thus giving life and harmony to them.” More briefly said: The instrumental part of the Japanese performance of Nō punctuates the tempo, emphasises the rhythm of the actor’s chant or recitative, and helps to define and increase the emotional values of the entire performance.

One or two attendants, dressed in ordinary costume and supposed to be invisible, whose office is to attend upon the principal actor, place a seat for him, arrange his costume, and handle the simple stage properties, complete the personnel of the Nō as performed at the present time.

It was customary in the period of the Tokugawa Shōgunate, and still continues to be, that a complete Nō performance should last through an entire long day, and should consist of not fewer than five numbers, each of a different kind. As has already been said, these serious pieces were separated by Kyogen, or comediettas of a burlesque character. The shorter performances, to which tickets may be obtained for a moderate fee, have doubtless been visited by some of my readers. But I doubt whether any of them has ever spent an entire day in attending the regular monthly performances of the rival schools, as they are given for the entertainment and instruction of their patrons among the nobility and literati. It is, perhaps, more doubtful whether they have had the patience to hold out to the end of the day; and altogether unlikely that they have had the benefit of any such an interpretation as that afforded us by the companionship of my friend, Professor U——. For this reason, as well as for the intrinsic interest of the subject, I shall venture to describe with some detail the dramas which I saw performed during two all-day sessions of the actors and patrons of the Nō, in November, 1906.

The first of these performances was at the house of an actor of note who, although ill-health had compelled him to retire from the stage, had built in his own yard a theatre of the most approved conventional pattern, and who conducted there a school for this kind of the dramatic art. The enterprise was supported by a society, who paid the expenses by making yearly subscriptions for their boxes. Two of the boxes had been kindly surrendered to us for the day by one of these patrons.

Although we reached the theatre, after early rising, a hasty breakfast, and a long jinrikisha ride, before nine o’clock, the performance had been going on for a full hour before our arrival. The first play for the day which we witnessed bore the title of “Taira-no-Michimori”; it is one of the most justly celebrated of all the extant Nō dramas, both for its lofty ethical and religious teaching and also for its excellent artistic qualities. The scene is supposed to be near Kobé, on the seashore. A very sketchy representation of a fisherman’s boat was placed at the left of the stage. The chorus of ten men came solemnly in, knelt in two rows on the right of the stage, and laid their closed fans on the floor in front of them. The four musicians and two assistants then placed themselves at the rear-centre of the stage. In addition to the use of their instruments, as already described, they emphasised the performance by the frequent, monotonous emission of a cry which sounds like—“Yo-hé, yo-hé, yo-hé.”

This play opens with the appearance of two characters, who announce themselves as wandering priests, and who proclaim the wonderful results which their intercessory prayers have already achieved. They then relate the fact of the battle on this very spot, in which the hero of the play, Taira-no-Michimori, was slain. So great was the grief of his wife that, when she heard of the death of her husband, she threw herself over the sides of the boat in which she was seated at the time, and was drowned. Since then, the ghosts of the unhappy pair have been condemned to wander to and fro, in the guise of simple fisher-folk. When the priests have finished, they seat themselves at the right-hand corner of the stage; and the chorus take up the story of the battle and its sequent events. First, they describe in poetic language the beauty of the moonlight upon the sea and its shore. But as they enter upon the tale of so great and hopeless a disaster, the chorus and the orchestra become more excited, until—to quote the statement of my learned interpreter—they cease to utter intelligible words, and “the Hayaskikata simply howl.”