Late Muromachi and Furyū Nō: Two Plays by Kanze Nagatoshi

This paper looks at the late Muromachi nō playwright Kanze Nagatoshi, examining two of his plays, Rinzō (The Revolving Sutra Case) and Ōyashiro (The Great Shrine), structurally against the Sandō (The Three Paths), the great treatise on nō play composition written by Zeami Motokiyo, Nagatoshi’s great-uncle. In doing so it discusses both the original aspects of Nagatoshi’s style as well as its continued indebtedness to past playwrights and the classical tradition, exploring how the style had much to do with the changed demographic of the period and highlighting several factors that facilitated Nagatoshi’s move away from dependence on roles traditionally considered primary toward an embrace of roles usually consigned to secondary status.