Kyogen is the comic form of Noh, and is performed, in Noh programs, between the Noh dramas. There are also exclusively Kyogen presentations in Japan and in cities such as New York and Los Angeles. Kyogen has the same style as Noh, there is the same formal, proscribed way of walking, of holding the arms and hands, and of using the voice. They differ, of course, in that Noh is dramatic and Kyogen is comic, but also, in Noh, they use masks representing gods and demons, and nobles and samurai, and use fabulous costumes representing same, while Kyogen is all about humans and our foibles, and masks are rarely used so the actor’s face is almost always shown.
Acting in the short, funny, Kyogen plays, in the formal Kyogen style, was difficult, to say the least, because the kind of acting I was learning and kind of doing, in class and in shows, was, basically, from the inside out. Kyogen was stylized, and much more than the “technique” most of us at that time thought British acting was about, acting from the outside in. Kyogen was an actual, physical structure, in a way, is how I thought of it for a while. How do I act past that was the question. Well, here’s what happened.
My teacher, Intangible Cultural Asset Nomura Mansaku, who was famous for his Kyogen technique, was 42 at the time, and toward the end of the semester his father, Japan National Treasure, Nomura Manzo, brought some of the Nomura Kyogen Theatre actors to Hawaii on a short tour. He also brought my teacher’s son, Nomura Mansai, who was 7 years old then. Nomura Manzo was 77. So there was a 35 year age difference between Mansai and his father, Mansaku, and 35 years between Mansaku and his father, Manzo.
The troop, along with my teacher, gave a special performance at the University. It was a wonderful show, especially Manzo-san, so natural, so funny. And then they did a play featuring my teacher, Mansaku-san, his son, and his father. It was a charming and funny play about an invisible boy, but when I saw the three of them onstage together, I remember literally being struck by what I saw, by the thought that burst in my mind. That I was seeing one actor at three stages of his life. The natural child learning the technique, the man at the peak with his technical prowess, and the old man who had left it all behind and was natural again. Shakespearean, right?
That showed me something. That I could learn, and I would go far and high, and, hopefully, become natural someday.
