context: theatre > noh > origins

Zeami 1363-1443

It's hard to know, 700 years or so on, just how important Zeami was. His criticism and descriptions of how to perform Noh are still read and revered, and a debatable number of his plays are still performed: one book will tell you he wrote around 150, and over half of the 200 or so still in the repertoire are by him; however, the attribution seems wholly reliable on only something like 25 plays. Actually his most important role in establishing Noh may have been rather more depressing: it is thought that at the age of 11 he was given sexually to shogun Ahikaga Yoshimitsu. Certainly, Yoshimitsu's patronage from 1374 made Noh the theatrical art of the shoguns, rather than just another style of performance.