context: theatre > noh > impenetrability

Impenetrability of Noh: Style

a Noh boat

The stage is always the same, including the same backdrop, a pine tree. Props are almost abstract, a suggestion of a boat rather than anything genuinely mimetic. Plays are very, very slow: sometimes there is silence and stillness for long periods of time (up to a quarter of a play!). The music is in a tonal scale alien to a Westerner; the rhythms are uneven, and often bear no clear or familiar relationship to the singing/chanting, which may in turn have nothing detectable to do with the flute melody. Some plays have no actual story; frequently there is no conflict of any kind.

I'd sum Noh's impenetrability up by quoting the revered Zeami on the highest class of Noh acting, from his definitive text on how to perform Noh: "The Art of the Flower of Mystery. This can be symbolized by the phrase, 'In Silla at midnight the sun is bright.'"

backwards: Dialogue