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 once asked the Noh actor Mr. Mikata Shizuka: “What do you yourself bring to Noh from your own mind, heart and training? What is your signature style?”

“This will be judged by the viewers,” he replied. “What I value most is what I would like to express to the viewers, not to show my individuality. When I am doing this, I am not expressing myself.”

“Suppose it were possible to build a robot to move the mask, would that be effective?”

“No. It has no mind.” 8

“Where does your consciousness go when you perform?”

“It depends. The state where you think absolutely nothing, I think it’s hard to grasp. But the intention is to show. If it’s a Komachi play, I don’t think that I try to be like Komachi. 9If you want to show something, it comes to you internally, then somehow shrinks.”

I told him about feeling in my hands and fingers when I am caught up in my writing; it is an exhilarating feeling during which my fingers do not belong to me, but to something else which is writing. What is it? I do not know. At its best, it is not an assertion of myself.

“I feel exactly the same,” said Mr. Mikata.

“How else do you feel when you perform?”

“Depending on the role, sometimes excited. First, one thing: When you put on your mask, your view is restricted. It’s like you are standing in the dark.”

“What effect does that have?”

“Like a binding. Because of the restriction, your mind comes back to you.”

He became “half-eyed” when he played Yoroboshi. “That’s how I can see. That means, I cannot see anything in particular. But somehow, you see the air.”

I think the reason that he can see the air is that he possesses the true flower. I have felt it in his performances. It must be this that makes the dance his alone — and, of course, the flower does not belong to him, but he to the flower.

Noh dance (and some Kabuki as well) is associated most prominently with the style called mai , which is characterized by turning movements and stately slowness, with the knees bent a trifle and the soles of the tabi- stockinged feet always on the floor. Sometimes the actor stamps, this mannerism being a relic of ancient religious ceremonials. Zeami divides the dance into three modes: warrior, old person and woman. There is also the mode of god or demon. Mr. Kanze Hideo told me: “There is not much difference between god and human movements. It depends on how human the god is.” I inquired about the case of Okina, and he said that there “it is different, because everything in the play is a form of prayer.”

What are Noh players doing when they dance? It has been said that “their movements become dreamlike glosses on the ideas carried by the words” — which cannot be entirely true, because sometimes, as with Yuya’s dance, there is no idea to convey, nothing except elegant mystery itself. But certainly, as Mr. Mikata said, “the intention is to show.” And so, slowly, without assertion of self, great actors offer their life-force to a role just as a Catholic priest offers up a chalice to be filled with enigma. “All the exercises must be severely and strictly done,” in the way that in “Semimaru” the green-robed imperial messenger turns his back on us and slowly, slowly leaves the blind Prince alone forever, gliding across the bridge toward the rainbow curtain, followed by the attendants with the palanquin frame. Semimaru kneels and slowly raises his sleeves to his face as if drinking loneliness from them.

COSTUMES

“She was instantly recognized as a geisha of the very first class when she went out in a white-collared kimono decorated with a family crest.” Thus wrote Kafu Nagai in one of his best novels (1918). Noh kimonos expect their own instant recognition — sometimes. People with middling knowledge, such as myself, may be aware that the presence of red in a brocade robe indicates youth (the more red, the younger), and that the rank of a female character can be inferred from the color of the under-kimono’s neckband. Purple, plum, greyish-green, etcetera, represent middle-aged women. True cognoscenti will recognize, say, a gold-backgrounded oryu kimono and know this character as a monster from a Chinese tale. A shirojusu- backgrounded tuyushiba , which depicts dew and grass, would surely have been chosen to allude to evanescence. A kurojusu- backgrounded ayasugi matsuba , which stylizes pine needles, alludes to immortality or fidelity.

The way a costume is worn also imparts recognition. For instance, the madwoman shite s of “Semimaru” and “Hanjo” let their right sleeves fall off their shoulders.

A costume might portray dewy grass, or seven wise men, or butterflies, or grasses and flowers and insect cages; but often we idlers and passers-by of this floating world can see the stage only from a distance, the fantastic figure against the backdrop of painted bamboos, and then the patterns it wears are beautiful beyond specific knowledge. If we are lucky enough to sit closer, we may realize that the darkhaired pallid mask and the water-green of the kimono are “brought out” even more by the glimpse of red garment beneath.

Most of Japan’s ancient 10Noh costumes were burned up in the American air raids on Tokyo near the end of the Second World War; some of the best surviving examples may be seen at the Mitsui Memorial Museum. What can they mean to me? A black-dragon-wave-backgrounded “sword and mountain” or “flower holder” kimono, how much expressive discretion might its wearer possess? Perhaps the former might appear on the actor who portrays the jealous serpent-woman of “Dojoji,” although a diamond-fish-scale design would be more à propos. (Being associated with snake-scales, triangle patterns often express demonic female roles.) What about the Karahana pattern with the brown background called “Komochiyama?” My translator, Ms. Yasuda Nobuko, gives the Japanese characters, then sadly reports: “Could not read nor find translation.”

Some of the costumes frequently used for female roles are the small-sleeved kara-ori ; the ones incorporating red portray young women. (Among those which do not I see one with a checkerboard of subdued rusts and lavenders embroidered black, pink, red and white wheel-patterns, ivylike foliage of various other colors, and pale arcs concatenated into schematizations of rolling hills.) Then there are the small-sleeved, foil-stenciled under-kimonos called surihaku (I remember seeing one in a museum in Kanazawa that was night-blue with silver flowers and grasses), and satin nuihaku , which again are small-sleeved, with surihaku and embroidery — but then again, nuihaku may be employed for noble young male roles. There are rules, but actors and schools may vary them. Moreover, the widths of the garments, and the shapes of the sleeves, have remained stable for a relatively short time — merely since the middle of the Edo period.

A frequent effect of Noh costumes is to balance the austerity of the stage, the chanting and the slow movements with spectacular elegance. If Zeami, many of whose performances were maskless, could see, would he approve? The colors worn by the principal actors are as shockingly beautiful as would be the plumage of tropical birds against a white wall. The necessary hideousness of the extremest monster-masks thus receives its neutralizing compensation; and the face of a lovely woman dances to life in the gorgeous body of a robe. The mask is the face; the costume is the body. Moreover, theses costumes are layered, like Noh meaning itself; I can remember seeing Mr. Umewaka in at least three, his under-layers showing through like accented allusions at wrist and neck and ankle. I wish I had the talent to describe the motions of his immensely wide sleeves.