Zeami Introduction

Introduction

Early in the 1990s, Dr. Gunhild Avitabile, then gallery director for New York's Japan Society, came up with such a splendid idea for an exhibit that one had to wonder why no one had ever thought of it before. Half a decade later, when her idea came to fruition, it was clear that even if someone else had dreamed of such an exhibit, the daunting task of realizing it must have immediately dampened their enthusiasm. This remarkable exhibit, "Japanese Theatre in the World," opened at the Japan Society's Japan House on West Forty-seventh Street in October 1998 and made history as the most comprehensive demonstration of Japanese theatre arts ever presented outside of their native land. Close to twenty curators, led by Avitabile, J. Thomas Rimer of the University of Pittsburgh, and Torigoe Bunzô of Waseda University, collaborated to bring together a spectacular collection of artifacts covering kagura, nô, kyôgen, kabuki, bunraku, shingeki, angura, butô, and various other classical, modern, and postmodern forms. Moreover, this epochal exhibition, after closing in New York in January 1998, then moved on to Munich, Germany, where it proved equally eye-opening during its spring showing at the museum Villa Stuck.

Inspired by the imminence of the exhibition and by its commitment to offer lectures, discussions, and seminars for both the general public and academic specialists, Benito Ortolani of Brooklyn College and the Graduate School, CUNY, knew at once that this was an opportunity to offer something really unique in the annals of Japanese theatre research. Aware that the International Zeami Society (Zeami Gakkai) holds an annual meeting, he invited the group to use the occasion of the exhibit's opening to hold their meeting in New York. His strenuous efforts resulted in a two-day symposium held on October 21 and 22, 1998, at the Graduate School and University Center, CUNY, on West Forty-second Street, with a wealth of participants from the Zeami Society and universities in America, Europe, and Canada. Taking his cue from the title of the exhibit, Ortolani labeled the symposium "Zeami and the Nô Theatre in the World." This was to be followed in Munich by another ambitious symposium (May 1998), using the broader title of the exhibit itself and organized by Stanca Scholz-Cionca of the Free University of Berlin and provided under the auspices of the Institute of Theatre Studies and the Institute of East Asian Studies, Japan Centre, of the University of Munich.

Zeami, not very long ago a name with which only Japanese theatre specialists were familiar, has in the past few decades become increasingly well known as one of the great figures in the history of world theatre. It is hoped that the present volume will contribute to his growing international reputation. The editors wish not only to encourage readers to more effectively appreciate and understand nô drama through increased access to his ideas, but to recognize Zeami's place in the pantheon of theatrical thinker-artists as one whose insights are often surprisingly pertinent on a universal plane, rather than on the strictly localized one of the form which gave them birth. This theme runs through several of the papers collected here.

The papers have been organized under several headings, although this is not how they were first presented. In a number of cases, papers could potentially have been placed under more than one rubric, although we believe they most closely conform to those given here. For example, the first paper, Matsuda Tamotsu's "Zeami's Ephemeral Flower: An Introductory Note," leads off the section titled "Zeami's Theories and Aesthetics." It deals with Zeami's concept of the flower (hana), an aesthetic ideal, but because hana is so intimately bound up with acting, it could, arguably, have been placed under the section called "Zeami and Acting." Matsuda's brief essay confronts the ephemerality of the flower and reminds us that much of nô's effect arises from the poignancy with which we experience the fleeting beauty of the flower, suggesting as it does the transitoriness of life. Daniel Gerould's essay, "Zeami the Theorist in the Context of World Theatre" then positions Zeami within the history of theatrical theory, demonstrating that Zeami exceeds the boundaries of more narrowly confined theorists in his concern with practically every facet of theatrical life, from the aesthetic and intellectual to the practical necessities of putting on a play. Further, Gerould explains, the pertinence of Zeami's ideas for modern theatre artists in the West has been increasingly recognized ever since the experimental developments of the 1960s. In "Zeami and the Aesthetics of Contemporary Japanese Performance," Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei takes us into the contemporary world of Japanese theatre, itself seemingly a reflection of those very currents of experimentalism alluded to in Gerould's essay, and reveals that, for all its seeming radicalism, the modern Japanese theatre often bears striking similarities to the aesthetic preoccupations of Zeami's art. Sorgenfrei points to parallels between the outcast status of actors in Zeami's world and those of contemporary theatre, clearing the way for our appreciation of Stanca Scholz-Cionca's "Outcast Imagery in Zeami's Plays," where she makes apparent Zeami's preoccupation with the outcasts of his day, and his use of images related to them in the plays he wrote.

Much of Scholz-Cionca's essay concerns the internal life of the text, bridging the gap from aesthetics to dramaturgy, the subject of the next section, "Zeami and Drama." Here, three papers are offered dealing with closely related dramaturgical features, ghosts, religion, and dreams. Taira Tatsuhiko writes about "Ghosts of Shakespeare and Nô Plays," briefly comparing the use of these supernatural beings by the English playwright and nô. Ghosts are a significant part of a Japanese worldview shaped by various religious forces, among them Buddhism. Although nô is a secular form, religion plays a major role in the belief systems of its characters and it would be as difficult to comprehend these works without some knowledge of their religious underpinnings as it would the dramas of Shakespeare. Zen Buddhism is one of the more overt forces at work in Zeami's plays and, while Ôtomo Taishi's "Zeami and Zen" is not precisely about the use of Zen in the plays, it is nevertheless important in its clarification of the historical background that led Zeami to employ Zen concepts in his writing. An understanding of this background will be helpful in reading Yoshimura Hitoshi's "The Function of Dreams in Nô," where the author establishes the religious context for nô's frequent employment of dreams as a dramatic device.

The book's third section, "Zeami and Acting," features four essays, beginning with Shelly Fenno Quinn's "Fierce Moons, Gentle Demons: Zeami's Body Poétique." Quinn's study, which presents insights into Zeami's notion of the "two modes and three styles," investigates the interaction between mimesis and musical performance elements in nô, and allows us to understand not only how Zeami sought to balance nô's aural and visual elements, but the more and less "elegant" components required in acting these plays. In "Kanze Hisao (1925-1978): Making Nô into Contemporary Theatre," Frank Hoff introduces us to a great modern nô actor, one whose progressive ideas were largely responsible for making nô relevant to the postwar world and who was something of a rarity in carefully explaining himself in print. Hoff's essay contains impressive extracts from Kanze's writing, never before seen in English. James R. Brandon's "Zeami in Acting: Values for the Western Actor," takes us into the classroom to explain how American students discover, often to their amazement, the usefulness of Zeami to their understanding of acting. In "Zeami Motokiyo and Etienne Decroux: Twin Reformers of the Art of Mime," Kathryn Wylie-Marques details the striking parallels between the artistic goals of the medieval Japanese nô master and the revolutionary modern French mime, himself quite possibly influenced by nô.

The section entitled "Zeami and the World" contains two papers, both close to the symposium's ostensible purpose of placing nô in an international framework, as already intimated in the essays by Gerould, Hoff, Brandon, and Wylie-Marques. Saitô Yûichi's "Overseas Performances of Classical Nô Plays" assembles an abundance of data to document all foreign tours of nô since the first in 1954, and presents an assortment of charts and graphs to explain the tendencies in repertoire demonstrated by these visits. Benito Ortolani, in "Zeami and the Nô: Notes on an International Bibliography," explains the need and discusses procedures for developing a detailed, ongoing bibliography in English of international writing about Zeami and the nô.

The final section, "Zeami Discussed," offers Samuel L. Leiter's two part narrative summary of the roundtable discussions held in the afternoons, following the presentation of symposium papers. Among the participants were several distinguished participants who did not present papers, and a couple who did (Richard Emmert and Munakata Kuniyoshi) but whose papers, being essentially demonstrations, were not prepared for publication.

We are honored to have had the opportunity to publish the essays delivered at this important symposium and wish to thank Daniel Gerould, Lucille Lortel Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Comparative Literature, for his generosity in making this publication possible through the offices of CASTA (Center for Advanced Study in Theatre Arts), Edwin Wilson, director, Ph.D. Program in Theatre, Graduate School and University Center, CUNY. Professors Gerould and Wilson were extremely helpful and supportive in seeing that this volume was produced as quickly as possible following the symposium. Funds for the publication of this book were also provided by the Japan Foundation, for which we are very grateful. Also deserving of enormous gratitude are CUNY Ph.D. candidates Pamela Hunt, who served as editorial assistant; Lars Myers, who oversaw the preparation of the proofs; Robert Roarty, who transcribed the roundtable discussions; Kei Hibino, who helped with the transcriptions; and Justin Leigh Leiter, who designed the book's cover. We express our considerable thanks to the Zeami Gakkai for its enthusiasm and scholarship, without which this project could never have been achieved. We also acknowledge that this project could not have been realized had it not been for the continued support and encouragement of our wives, Maria Ortolani and Marcia Leiter.

* * * Note: all Japanese names, other than those of Japanese-Americans or others who write in English, are in Japanese order, family name first.