Japanese theater - Current and Coming

Magazine Antiques, Dec, 2002 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

One of the most revered cultural traditions in Japan is the theater, or more specifically Noh and Kyogen. Noh originated in the fourteenth century as a spectacle that incorporates dance, music, drama, and literature. It is highly esteemed for the sumptuous costumes and masks that are part of its stylized structure. Like Noh, Kyogen has its mots in popular street entertainments of the fourteenth century, but it evolved into a form of comedy used as an interlude between two, much more weighty, Noh plays. While Noh relies on music and dance, Kyogen depends on dialogue and mime.

An exhibition currently on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art examines the evolution of these two theatrical forms. It is entitled Miracles and Mischief Noh and Kyogen Theater in Japan and includes more than one hundred costumes (on view in two installments), musical instruments, more than thirty masks along with a selection of tools used to make them, and eleven seventeenth- and eighteenth-century screens, band scrolls, and albums that include scenes of the theater. The first selection of costumes is on view until December 15, and the galleries will be closed to the public on December 16, 17, and 18 so that the second group of costumes can be installed. This second selection and all of the other objects in the show are on view until February 2, 2003.

Noh outer costumes and undergarments (of which there are some twenty types) all have meanings and are used to distinguish the various roles of their wearers according to the tailoring, color, pattern, and weave structure. From these, the character's age, sex, social status, and emotional state are apparent to the cognoscenti. Much of Noh theater revolves around the fantastical or magical. By contrast, Kyogen theater takes its cue from the everyday world. Costumes used for these plays were not developed until the Edo period, and even then they were based on contemporary clothing. In the seventeenth century actors became more concerned about formalizing this type of theater--a transition marked by the development of specific types of costumes usually made of plain-weave hemp with decorations such as crabs and vegetables created by a paste-resist dyeing technique.

The exhibition was organized by Sharon Sadako Takeda, a senior curator and department head in the costume and textile department at the Los Angeles County Museum, with Monica Bethe, a professor at Otani University in Kyoto. They and six other scholars have contributed to the exhibition catalogue, which may be obtained by telephoning 800-288-2129.