William Vollmann - Kissing the Mask - Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with Some Thoughts on Muses (Especially Helga Testorf), Transgender Women, ... Geishas, Valkyries and Venus Figurines

I have read that the stage is in twenty pieces, that the best wood for it comes from Owari, and that in the hollow space beneath it are set ten large earthen jars for acoustical purposes. “The roof should not be tiled, but should be like the roof of the shinto temples in Ise.”

The stage is isolated from us by white sand or gravel — another reference to Shinto.

MUSIC

In spite of Mr. Umewaka’s dictum that the mask is most important always , Thomas Blenham Hare believes that “the music and dance of noh have always been the central concern of most noh actors.” How can one not love an art form which provokes such disagreement even as to what is central?

I recently learned that water pails, swords, hats, fans and other such props have “always” been supplied based on the type of music. No one has yet explained to me how this determination is made.

The musicians are called the hayashi . Either two or three drummers may be present; there is always one flutist. The drums themselves are quite beautiful with their ornamented bands, tri-leaved patterns, and other variable features which are as invisible to the public as an opera diva’s underwear. The otsuzumi , or larger hourglass drum (also called the okawa), is held against the hip. Its sound is the most conspicuous; one commentator describes it as a “sharp, urgent click.” The kotsuzumi , or smaller hourglass drum, is played against the shoulder. The same commentator characterizes its sound as “a muffled, funereal boom.” I have seen one with golden floral and leaf lacquer patterns on its black skin. Another “extra large” drum called the taiko is sometimes also used. All of the drummers can cry out. The flute (either a nokan or a fue) may be played improvisationally or by rule, depending on circumstances. The second category warrior play “Atsumori” begins with a single, shocking flute-note. The flute often also sounds at the end of many Noh plays. I am told that this instrument’s narrow bamboo throat “upsets the normal acoustical properties… and is responsible for its ‘other-worldly’ sound quality.”

The drums and flute may collectively be called yonbyoshi . The percussion may be likened unto rocks in the flute’s stream.

The progression of the music is again: jo, ha, kyu — that is, introduction (slow), development (medium) and climax (rapid). As we know, the narrative follows the same progression. So, at least ideally, does an entire program sequence of Noh plays.

The first three sections of a Noh play are either spoken or else, in Hare’s words, “rhythmically unobtrusive.” Then, in keeping with jo-ha-kyu , the shite begins to sing in the fourth section, and dance in the fifth. It is here that Noh music is most impressive.

I have already compared Noh to a musical jam session. A Noh expert amplifies: “Improvisation in Noh is probably closer to that of Sviatoslav Richter, who said he never knew what he was going to play until he sat down and did it, than to Bill Evans.” He grants that it lacks key signatures and tempo markings. “But a good listener will notice if the drums are off a beat or even a partial beat, or if the musicians are taking a dance piece too fast or slow.” Noh possesses greater latitude in tempo and rhythm than, say, Western chamber ensembles, “so that the actors and musicians are in a constant state of artistic tension in order to stay in synch. The hip drum player is watching the actor, the shoulder drum player is listening to him, and they are carrying on a musical conversation, so to speak, with the flute eavesdropping. The shite has to be listening to the hayashi without losing a sense of his own inner rhythm. The stick drum tends to dominate the hayashi when it comes in, but the flute may also do so during the dance pieces. Each player has to keep on his toes, keeping up with the rhythm as it shifts… When [Umewaka] Rokuro is the chorus leader (who sits in the middle of the back row) it’s worth going just to hear them. He always keeps the beat slightly off the metronome, so to speak, giving it that Noh cutting edge.”

The strangely addictive, not-quite-monotones of the men’s singing can be described in words only indirectly. They sing with slightly bowed heads, very grave and doleful, their voice-beauty not unlike that of certain Native American chants, and then the flute shimmers on.

Kotoba is chanted speech; yowa-gin or wagin is the melodic mode employed to convey elegance and refined emotion; suyo-gin or gogin is the forceful mode, expressing bravery, rapidity and the like. It may exasperate or comfort the reader who cannot attend a Noh performance to learn that “pitch in noh is relative. Individual actor-singers sing at their own preferred and/or comfortable pitch.”

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Mr. Umewaka Minoru told Fenollosa that “the importance of the music is in its intervals… It is just like the dropping of rain from the eaves.”

As for Zeami, he considered the very existence of the chorus to be “contrary to the principles of our art. 7

I read that during the Edo period, skill in Noh singing was widespread among the samurai class. To me, and to many of my Japanese friends, it is one more of this floating world’s unknowns.

Because my subject is the feminine, while Noh music, and certainly the singing that shapes and dominates it, has, for me at least, an extremely masculine character, this book mostly ignores Zeami’s watchword that “a truly fine play involves gesture based on chanting.”

DANCES

Edwin Denby once remarked that “intelligent dancing — which might as well be called correct dancing — has a certain dryness that appeals more to an experienced dance lover than to an inexperienced one.” He was not writing about Noh at all, but he might as well have been. Please remember Zeami’s prescription that “all the exercises must be severely and strictly done. There must be no self-assertion.” And Noh is indeed, for the most part, very dry (at least in comparison to, say, the Tokyo subway in my epoch, when it is impossible to turn one’s gaze anywhere except to the floor without seeing some message; and on the floor one reads the tale of many different shoes, the feet within some of them fidgeting) — its related drynesses of dance movements, music, stage props and scenery comprising a frame for the spectacular costumes and masks, not to mention the occasional almost shocking increases in dance tempo, the sudden shrillings of the flute and raised chorus-voices.

Another manifestation of Noh’s severity is the extent to which the movements have been preordained. As a Kabuki actor once told me: “Noh is for the warrior. Kabuki is for the general public. Noh has many restrictions. For instance, you always have to start with a certain foot forward for a given role.” Such specificities have characterized Noh for centuries. In one of Zeami’s secret treatises we find this admonition for performing “Matsukaze”: The shite must not approach the waki when reciting, “please pray for remains,” or else the play will fall flat. Rather, he must remain where he is, then approach the waki , then withdraw. — In 1900, Umewaka Minoru mentioned to Fenollosa the existence of a “roll” for dancers with “minute diagrams showing where to stand, how far to go forward, the turns in a circle,” etcetera. “There are drawings of figures naked for old men, women, girls, boys, ghosts, and all kinds of characters sitting and standing; they show the proper relation of limbs and body.” Such diagrams are still used.

The teacher of a renowned twentieth-century geisha informed her: “All I am able to do is teach you the form. The dance you dance on stage is yours alone.” Hers alone? Yes, but she too would have agreed with Zeami, who underscored his prohibition of self-assertion thus: “There is no room here for my own thinking.” How then can the dance be the dancer’s?