Went to watch the Japanese performance of Kyogen (狂言) and Noh (能) at the National Noh Theater near Setagaya Station last Monday.
Think about a month ago, read from the email sent by Waseda CIE (Center for International Education) that the Association of Japanese Noh Plays was giving out free tickets to foreign students to attend the performance. Had totally forgotten that I had expressed my interest in watching the performance in an email to the Association, until I received the ticket in the mail 2 weeks ago. The ticket was priced at 4,000yen and I got it for free.. :)
Read up a bit about Noh last night, but could really imagine it in my mind as I have never watch it before, neither live or through tv/video/etc. So didn't really know what to expect.. In the end, it was really an eye-opener for me, to say the least..
Reached the Theater around 5:15pm, thinking that I would have been too early as the gates will open at 5:30pm while the performance will only start at 6:30pm. I was very wrong.. There was already a long line formed in front of the entrance.. Well, I must say that the Japanese queue up nicely and politely in all these kinds of situations. And no jumping queue was allowed as the older folks will not hesitate to tell that person(s) off if he/she 'happens' to queue wrongly.. So I have found a worthy competitor to Singaporean's love-to-queue characteristic.. :p
The gate did not open until almost 5:45pm.. by that time, I would estimate more than 100 people have queued in the line that had snaked through the compound of the Theater. In the queue, there are quite a number of foreigners, either from their looks (aka 'Ang-mo' - Caucasians) or from their conversations (I could hear Chinese and Korean being spoken). Of course there were also lots of Japanese people in the crowd, many of them were the elderly ladies wearing their kimono (simplified version, I think).
Once inside the Theater, I was spellbound by the stage.. It was a simple yet intricate setting.
The brochure stated that no photography allowed, so I left the camera in my room. But almost everyone around me is taking photos.. I was being too law-biding, thus in the end I had to use my mobile phone to take 5 photos.. the resolution was not as good as I like nor was the photo size to my liking, but some poor quality photos were better than nothing..
The stage had 2 entrances. One on the left side, where the actors would appear walking through a short corridor, or in Japanese they called it a bridgeway ('hashi-gakari'). Another entrances at the side of the main stage, through a small sliding door called the 'Kirido-guchi'. This sliding door is where most of the non-acting performers enters, meaning all the choir and 'props'-men. On the back of every seat there is a small monitor to display (Japanese and English) subtitles for the benefit of the person sitting behind.
Before the performances began, a guy came onto the stage. He went on to introduce and explain briefly the history, evolution, settings, stage of Noh. He spoke in Japanese. I could catch maybe 30% of what he was saying as he was using lots of Keigo and was explaining something that I had no idea of.. He talked for about 20 minutes..
First performance was 'Boushibari', a Kyougen performance. The first impression that came to my mind was that this was a comedy skit. From the guidebook written by The Nohgaku Performers' Association, it states that
"With time, Kyougen went further to evolve from simple mimicry to become a scripted play that made satirical fun of various aspects of society." The way the actors said their lines were also quite interesting. They pronounced every single syllable in a very awkward way, with intonations that goes up and come down. Maybe that's why there was also Japanese subtitles shown on top of the English ones.
The actors for Kyougen were all guys with grey hairs. They would be at least 60 years to me.. Maybe it was the story that required the actors to be much older.. :p However, the 3 of them were really good and very funny too.
There was a 15 min interval after the Kyougen performance.
Then it was the main performance, the Noh play - Kantan (邯鄲)!! This is actually a story taken from China. From Tang Dynasty, it was called 《枕中记》which gave us the proverb 黄粱一梦 which means simply, life is but a dream..
First 4 musicians walked slowly through the bridgeway. They will be seated at the back of the main stage. From the right would be the flute ('fue'), the shoulder-drum ('Ko-tsuzumi'), the 'Ou-tsuzumi' (another type of drum) and the 'daiko' (big drum). These music instruments are the core of the Noh performance. The Noh actors moves and reacts to the beat of these instruments.. Although personally I don't mind the instruments, I just couldn't quite stand the chantings, mumblings and shouting that the musicians make while playing those instruments.
The main lead was wearing a mask, while the others didn't. Don't quite know why yet.. However the costumes worn by the actors were all equally colorful and elaborate, and of course the lead actor would wear the most colorful one. Also there seems to be no woman actress in the play, as the role of the lady owner of the inn was being played by a guy..
After watching, here are some of my observations and thoughts:
- The movements of the actors were all very slow. Compared to the fast movements usually seen in Chinese operas, the actors especially the main lead moves painfully slow, at least to me..
- With reference to No.1, the legs of these actors should be very strong as they need to get up, move around, sit down very very slowly.. :p almost like in slow motion..
- Noh is not for those who are impatient.. There aren't much actions or fanciful foot work and the story development was kinda slow too... All I've seen was some flipping of their long sleeves, a couple of choreography of fan and walking up and down the stage...
- As the main character was wearing a mask, there was no way for the audience to see his facial expressions. Even those actors who were not wearing any masks, not much obvious facial expressions from them too.. So all the acting was in their actions and gestures..
- Very little props were used and no elaborate backdrops were displayed but yet the grandiose of it can be easily felt. I couldn't help but be absorbed by it..
- It wasn't very beginner friendly as one would need to be familiar with some sort of opera to know that the actors do certain actions to symbolize certain things or the stage was set-up in that particular with a particular in-build meaning..
- The subtitles really helped a lot.. without it I wouldn't say that I would be lost in translation, but I would missed out certain significance of certain actions/props/layout/etc.. Also it pays to know the story that was going to be played first, then you can concentrate on seeing how the Noh interprets the story using it's techniques...
- Unlike Chinese operas, there was a group of choir singers (all were men) seated along the right hand side of the stage. Also it was kinda weird to me to see that the musicians (flute, and 3 types of drums) sat at the center back of the stage, as I thought the main focal point should be on the Noh actors.. To me, these musicians were quite distracting when they make all those chanting and grunts on top of the music they made..
- The entire experience was very pleasant. It was held in a nicely built theater with impressively simplistic stage, and the audience was well-mannered. No interruptions from mobile phones or people talking loudly.
I hope to watch a few more types of traditional Japanese performing act, like the Kabuki and Bunraku during my time in Japan.. :)
For a few more pictures of the Noh Stage..
