When one hears the Nō called archaic and primitive because of their absence of scenery and the child-like simplicity and artlessness of the properties one feels it is by a critic who is confusing values. “Words which unaided can hold an audience, a drama which can paint the scene directly on the mind with little intervention of the eye, is surely not rightly described as primitive.”
Plate 4.
MIIDERA
This print, taken from a Japanese coloured woodcut, illustrates the central figure of a Nō drama, with the single, most characteristic piece of stage “property,” belonging to the play. The figure is that of a mother, well-nigh mad with grief at the loss of her child, (note the bamboo in her hand, a symbol of her state) who sets out to seek him. She finds the little one at the Temple of Miidera, a view of which is inset in the black circle on the left of the print. The model of a temple bell in red lacquer beneath this is mounted on roller feet, and is an illustration of the piece of property which is all that represents the temple on the stage, and is a good example of the simplicity of the stage-mounting of the Nō pieces.
The Audience
Prof. Aston, in his History of Japanese Literature, says (p. 200): “Representations (of the Nō) are still given in Tokio, Kioto and other places, by the descendants or successors of the old managers who founded the art ... and are attended by small but select audiences composed almost entirely of ex-Daimios or military nobles and their ex-retainers. To the vulgar the Nō are completely unintelligible.” The contrast between the audiences at the Nō and at the common theatre is very marked, but then it must be remembered that practically no one of culture or refinement attends the common theatre, and practically every one of that class is interested in the Nō. Owing to the present social conditions in Japan, however, the audiences at the Nō pieces are not so small or so restricted as this would lead us to believe if we did not remember that ex-daimios and military nobles have entered almost every social grade; many, indeed most, of the common police are Samurai, excessively poor students of the University or school teachers, and even rickshaw-men may be the representatives of the proud old families. When, a little more than forty years ago, the great social upheaval and re-organisation of Japan took place, and the nobles and Samurai lost their privileged positions, though they were given positions of honourable standing so far as possible, many of them entered the ranks of what we would call the “common people”; and so it happens that to-day there are permeating nearly the whole of society, in all its grades, some of the old cultured class. Among policemen, rickshaw-men and gardeners one may come across men of deep classical interests and knowledge, and a poor student living on a few shillings a week may spend his evenings chanting the Nō songs to the moon. Indeed, while I was in Tokio such a one lived near the house in which I dwelt for a few months. I never met him personally, because I did not wish to destroy the wonderful impression of melancholy romance and weird beauty which his chanting gave me. The many evenings that I sat alone on my balcony, looking toward Fuji mountain, behind which the sun had set, and heard in the swiftly passing twilight and under the glittering oriental stars the mournful, tragic chants of the Nō which this young man was practising, have left their life-long impression on me, and perhaps account for the deeper love and understanding of the Nō which have come to me than to the foreigners who hear only a few performances in a theatre. Yet this young man lived in what could scarcely be called more than a hovel, and he is representative of thousands now so living in Japan.
Consequently one must remember that though the audience of a Nō theatre is “select” in the real sense, it is not by any means entirely composed of wealthy folk.
All who can afford to do so come in full ceremonial dress, which is sombre-coloured both for men and women, for custom only allows the brilliant colours to be donned by children and young girls. Most of the audience arrives by nine o’clock in the morning, and remains till three or four in the afternoon. The “boxes” are little matted compartments marked off on the floor, with railings round them but six inches high, and every one sits on his folded-up legs on a cushion on the floor. As will be seen in the diagram (p. [10]) the audience sits round three sides of the stage. In the winter they will have a little charcoal fire in the box beside them, and will sit warming their hands over it as they watch the piece.