Theatre of Dreams, Theatre of Play: Nō and Kyōgen in Japan ed. by Khanh Trinh, and: Traditions Transfigured: The Noh Mask of Bidou Yamaguchi ed. by Kendall H. Brown, and: The Secrets of Noh Masks by Udaka Michishige (review)

Masks and Costumes as Time (and Space) Machines

Is there a theatrical culture more copiously illustrated over the centuries than that of the Japanese? From even before the earliest printing equipment, the classical traditions gagaku, nō and kyōgen, then kabuki and to a lesser extent bunraku were recorded, often with the detail of keen participant-observers. The potent stillness of the medieval nō mask and the dynamism of the kabuki hero's painted face and arms-akimbo stance have become these iconic symbols respectively for "exotic and erotic Japan." Public and private museums worldwide maintain, catalogue, and digitize these gems, gathered from family treasure houses. Their open-access archives have proved a great boon to scholars of Japanese visual and material culture.

The nō mask has been an especially popular symbol of the mysteriously elegant Japan. Novelist Mishima Yukio's Confessions of a Mask and William Vollmann's shambling diary Kissing the Mask join a seemingly endless stream of books adorned by nō masks by punning Japanese "experts" ("The American who can say nō," "Nō business," and "Japan behind the mask"). Inviting and denying like the Mona Lisa smile, the Japanese ko-omote (young girl's) mask exerts an ineffable attraction that has been one of the most enduring aspects of Western appreciation of the form over the centuries. Japanese masks have influenced Yeats, Craig, Copeau, Grotowski, and Brook, affirming and inspiring a Western return to its roots in masks, ritual, embodied expression, and stylized conventions.

Three recent books explore the beauty and power of the nō mask, as well as its cousin kyōgen's comic counterpart, the costumes that frame and focus them, as well as the prints and paintings that place them firmly historically in the Japanese aesthetic identity. Forgotten today is that these classical forms were once immensely popular, attracting supplicant regulars equivalent to our contemporary opera, musicals, and church.

Theatre of Dreams, Theatre of Play: Nō and Kyōgen in Japan

This book, edited by Khanh Trinh, was available on Amazon in spring 2017 for less than $30. This exhibit catalog contains beautifully illustrated and exceptionally expert essays, an excellent introduction to nō's fascination and subtle visual splendor. Curator and editor Khanh Trinh has assembled an all-star cast of authors and gorgeously reproduced images in a catalog for an exhibition at the New South Wales Museum that deserves a place on the shelf of any student of the art. High-quality essays, prints, and photographs combine to introduce effectively important aspects of the aesthetics, patronage, and functional design of Japanese medieval nō and kyōgen masks and costumes.

Takemoto Mikio's opening essay covers nō's history in perfunctory fashion, from mythical origins to codification in the fifteenth century to Meiji consolidation as an elite art. Founding actor-playwright Zeami receives a generous biography, for by attracting aristocratic patrons, nō began earning performers the use of elegant, gorgeously decorated kimono from appreciative patrons, sometimes offered during a performance.

J. Thomas Rimer provides a delightful aficionado's perspective gained over decades. He introduces the pleasures of watching Aoi no Ue, illustrated with drawings and photographs from the exhibition, and quotations from the play. These serve much more than archival documents of the play. In fact, the various arts that comprise nō—poetry, song, dance, and acting—depend on the power of specific seasonal and local imagery, making the fan, costumes, and masks essential...