This lesson provides an introduction to the elements of Noh plays and to the text of two plays, and provides opportunities for students to compare the conventions of the Noh play with other dramatic forms with which they may already be familiar, such as the ancient Greek dramas of Sophocles. By reading classic examples of Noh plays, such as Atsumori , students will learn to identify the structure, characters, style, and stories typical to this form of drama.
Students will expand their grasp of these conventions by using them to write the introduction to a Noh play of their own. What do the conflicts within the plot development and characters typical to the Noh play reveal about classical Japanese culture and values? Identify the conventions of the Noh form: the five types of Noh plays, the structure of the plays, the order of performance, and the traditional characters.
Describe and analyze the realization the main character, or shite, achieves at the end of the studied plays. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally. Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations. Noh developed into its present form during the 14th and 15th centuries and flourished under the patronage of military leaders of feudal Japan before the societal reforms of the Meiji period — eliminated Noh 's government patronage.
Although Noh nearly died out, enough performers regrouped, found private sponsors, and began teaching the art to amateurs so that it slowly began to flourish again.
You may wish to assign this reading as homework before conducting the class discussion. Once students have had an opportunity to read the play and to complete the work sheets on the story elements divide the class into groups of four or five students. Instruct each group to assign parts, with one student reading the part of the priest, one the reaper, one the group of reapers, one the chorus, and one Atsumori.
In a group of four, one student could read the parts of the reapers and the chorus or the young reaper and Atsumori. Once they have finished reading the play, have students discuss the basic elements of the story: the setting, the characters, the conflict, the resolution, the theme, and the style of the writing.
Students should write their answers to these questions in the spaces provided on the worksheet. As a class discuss student responses to the play and its elements. What did students find about this play to be unique or unlike plays they have read in the past? Were there parts of the play that they found difficult to understand, or that they felt might contain a meaning they could not easily discern? Traditionally Noh actors begin their training at the age of three.
In the early years, all roles were played by a male. Since s woman began to perform. Noah actors wear wigs, hats and colorful, rich texture silk robes called shozoku. Musicians and chorus wear formal kimono. The singing is limited in tonal range and is in chanted manner with repetitive passages. Texts are poetic. Melody is not in the center of singing. Props are minimalistic. Red is greed, blue is hatred, yellow is regret, green is disease, and black is grumbling.
Oni masks are commonly used in Setsubun, which is the day people expel a bad fortune and invite a good fortune by throwing beans. This event is held both at shrines and at each household. Parents wear masks to play Oni to frighten their children. Hannya masks are used in Noh theater, representing female demons. They are portrayed as a female with much jealousy and hatred with long horns, sharp teeth, and distorted eyes.
Hannya masks at a glance seem to show anger and jealous, but at the same time, if seen from a certain angle, they seem to show sadness. Kitsune is fox. Kitsune masks are worn by participants or attendees in Shinto festivals. Foxes are historically believed to be magical creatures which can transform themselves. They are believed to appear as a messenger of Inari, or the God of rice, commerce, and prosperity.
So foxes are an important figure in Shinto festivals involving the god. It is also said that the gods themselves show up as foxes. Tengu is a legendary creature known as the god or demons, which frightened humans due to its strong power to control the world. It takes between eight months to a year to complete the process of sculpting and painting a noh mask. While the noh masks are generally copies utsushi of traditional works, the carver always strives to discover and re-create the essence of the original mask.
This requires not only technical skill but an understand and appreciation of noh itself. Through subtle nuances of carving and coloring discovered and developed through years of training and experience, the power of the masks is brought to life.
A good mask is a medium for projecting emotion to an audience over a considerable physical distance.
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