Excerpt
from my article on this project The Aesthetics of Journey, published in Contemporary Theatre
Review Vol.I-2, special edition Japanese Theatre and the
West edited by
A. Horie-Webber, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994
Noh Drama: Memory or Passion?
Paul Claudel once
remarked that in western drama 'something happens' (quelque chose arrive) while
in Noh 'someone arrives' (quelqu'un arrive). We may proceed to ask: what compels the Noh hero to
'arrive'?
In a typical Noh
play, the central dramatic event is an encounter between characters travelling
from different existential regions. The shite (protagonist) makes a
journey across metaphysical boundaries from a world beyond, while the waki (secondary
character), often in a priestly role, travels the phenomenal world to reach the
locus of their chance encounter.
And for a fleeting moment the phenomenal world extends its vision into
the world beyond: the empty space becomes a supra-real arena where the dead,
the deranged, demons, gods and men come to commune, or else to combat, or at
least make cathartic contact.
The encounter brings
about a certain anagnorisis. The gods are revealed to be benevolent: they come
to impart their blessings ensuring good health and prosperity for men. Demons and malevolent spirits are duly
exorcised or destroyed. As for the human protagonists, the dead and the
deranged who inhabit the main body of the Noh repertory, the message they bring
is bleak. They come to tell of the woes of the soul trapped in the limbo of its
own obsession. They long to be
freed from it. Some have gone mad
on the account of it; some have lingered in this state long after their death. There seems little hope of salvation,
save for the powers of Buddhist prayers made on their behalf. Some leave just as they came, condemned
to their eternal limbo existence.
Still, their coming has not been entirely without solace. At long last they aired their smouldering
remorse and pain to a sympathetic listener; the encounter has been cathartic.
The essence of Noh
drama featuring human protagonists lies in this dilemma of shite the protagonist. These are men and women possessed by a
potent passion that will not let them go even in death. Thus they are compelled
to 'arrive' to air their woes and seek release or at least to make a cathartic
contact. As the shite mournfully recounts
his predicament, what the waki and audience witness is not so much the hero's memory
recalled or his past resurrected as the present progressive anger and remorse
of a soul in conflict, condemned to live on in limbo trapped by its own
immortal obsession.
On the Noh stage,
where several metaphysical regions converge, where time takes on non-monotonic
references, the past is in the present; the phenomenal world merges into the
worlds beyond. Thus the audience too makes a journey into regions beyond its
quotidian experience, to witness the peril that confronts those who fall prey
to their obsession.