How is Noh theater similar to Greek theater?

Answer 1

Noh (or Nōgaku) is a classical Japanese musical drama originating in the 14th century AD, which, unlike Ancient Greek theatre, is still extant in its traditional forms today. Much of the craft of acting and producing Nōgaku emphasizes tradition over innovation, so little room as left for interpolation and variation. However ethnically, geographically and chronologically disparate these two cultures and these two theatrical forms seem to be, there still are a myriad of marked similarities between the two forms of theatre.

Dramatic TextsThe texts of Ancient Greek theatre were not recorded until late in its history, and then albeit only on flimsy, ill-handled papyrus that would not keep with time; therefore, only approximately 33-35 plays of the Greek Theatre remain extant today out of tens of thousands that would have been produced over two centuries of Rural and City Dionysia (i.e., competitive performance festivals honoring the god of wine, drama and fertility: Dionysus). Contrarily, over 250 nōgaku texts remain extant today as part of a classical repertoire, protected over generations (since the 14th century AD) through the mastery and tutelage of various schools of acting and patronages.

Patronage of Ancient Greek theatre, in particular during the Golden Era of the Age of Pericles, led to the revival and recording of dramatic literature onto papyrus, because indeed, like nōgaku, the plays of the Athenian theatre were meant to be reproduced and shared along generational lines. There is no evidence however of the recording of Antique Greek play-text until the 4th century BC, when scholars widely believe that the argon eponymous (i.e., Athenian aristocrat [of sorts] who was responsible for planning and producing the major theatre festival at the Acropolis's Theatre of Dionysos: the City Dionysia) began to maintain print copies of the play that were in competition.

Unlike the classical nōgaku text, where interpolation, interpretation and innovation is frowned upon, the extant Ancient Greek theatre texts that exist today have been interpolated a thousand fold after two millennium of copying and recopying from papyrus to the finer documentary stocks that filled the Great Library of Alexandria, which survived until Roman Antiquity, and thence until the Renaissance, from whence modern texts are translated. Interpolation was easy from the start, as the scribes who first recorded the Ancient Greek theatre text during the 4th century BC left out all lineation, punctuation, word separation, stage direction or speech headers.

The only real salient similarities between the nōgaku texts and the Ancient Greek theatre texts that remain in their respective classical repertoires are the plays similarities in style. But still, even to this regard, the two forms of theatre diverge slightly. Nōgaku texts are separated into two distinct styles which the Ancient Greeks combined into one stylistically multi-dimensional dramatic form.

Nōgaku is separated into geki nō (i.e., "drama plays," which focus on the advancement of the plot and that of the narrative action) and furyū nō (i.e., "dance plays," which focus rather on the aesthetic qualities of the dances and songs performed).

Ancient Greek theatre, particularly that of Anthenia tragedy, emphasized both the narrative action and the aesthetics of song and dance, but each of its own accord, for Greek tragedy was split into episodes (i.e., narrative action played out by actors) and odes (lyric choral numbers choreographed to song and dance as a group).

Playwrights/Actors/DirectorsAll nōgaku and Antique Greek theatre texts were written by male playwrights, and all actors, chorus members and musicians in both theatre traditions are (or were) only male. Just as for one as for the other, both in nōgaku and in Ancient Greek theatre the earliest playwrights also functioned as actor in and directors of the performances; in fact, the playwrights acted as choreographers as well.

While nōgaku performers study their roles, their movement, their dance, song and text under the tutelage of the master actor of their distinct school of acting, all nōgaku actors and chorus members rehearse separately to join finally for a "once in a lifetime," "one time; one meeting" ichi-go ichi-e aesthetic treatment.

On the other hand, Ancient Greek theatre eventually evolved a distinction between the playwright/director/choreographer/composer (didaskalos) and that of the actor (hypokrites). The playwright was the major visionary vehicle behind the dramaturgical choices underpinning the production of Ancient Greek theatre, so that performances evoked great power in the unison of the choreographed choral movements and dances, and in the tonally unified melodies of lyrical song. The playwrights even had a hand at scene design, or skênographia.

What is ultimately very similar between the acting of nōgaku and Ancient Greek theatre is that the styles of acting were both very highly codified, incorporating choreographed movement, song and dance that were steeped in tradition.

Scenic Space/Structure (or Stage)There are four major similarities between the traditional nōgaku stage and the Ancient Greek scenic space are as follows:

• ACOUSTICS: The perfected symmetrically concentric architecture of the Ancient Greek theatrôn provided for acoustic that would be unparalleled in subsequent areas, and never matched in modern times. To enhance the resonant properties of the actors of nōgaku, giant ceramic pots or bowl-shaped concrete was buried underneath their stage.

• ELEVATED WOODEN STAGE: the nōgaku stage was traditionally made of wood and elevated approximately three feet to allow room for the ceramic or cement resonating bowls, while the lôgeion of the skênê in the earliest Greek theatre was made of wood also and raised approximately four metres off the orchêstra floor.

• PAINTED SCENERY: Nōgaku has its very simple hagami: a painting of a few pine trees, to provide scenic indications to the action of its plays, while Greek theatre, even at its most earliest stages, has more elaborate pinakes of painted cloth or wood that could be changed with the change of scenic location during the narrative, or during episodic intervals.

• SIDE ENTRANCE FOR ACTORS: Nōgaku stages have a narrow bridge, known as a hashigakari, connecting the offstage area with the playing area, upon which the main actors would enter and exit. The Ancient Greek theatrical space didn't have a bridge (per se) connecting the offstage area with the play area (orchêstra), but rather two arched pathways to either side of the orchêstra, known as parodoi or eisodoi, used for the entrances and exits of both the actors, the chorus and the lone musician.

Costumes/MasksBoth Nōgaku and Ancient Greek Theatre employ(ed) the use of hierarchically designed iconographic, stylized costumes and both naturalistic and stylized masks.

While all performers (except for the lone musician) in Greek theatre were masked; the actors portraying semi-divine heroic characters or comic parodies of historical figures wore masks that were more individualized, albeit highly stylized, covering the full head of the actors with hair attached. The costumes of the actors in Greek theatre were more ornamented and ornate in style depending on the importance and significance of the character they were set to portray in an instance, and in some cases, the costumes iconographically matched with the thematic nature of the character the actor was to portray.

The chorus in Greek theatre all wore uniform masks with less eccentric expressionistic features, in order to subdue their individuality and to unify them as a sort of mini-polis or group of citizens. It is argued by some scholars that the chorus wore simple tunics and sandals reminiscent of the Dionysian cults the preceding the theatre, but other scholars argue that choral costumes could have been ornate in nature, albeit less so that the actors that were meant to more aptly and aggressively grab the attention of the spectators.

In nōgaku, only the main actors (shite) and their foiled counterparts (waki) are masked; the masks being sculpted into highly refined, expressive shapes that could change the sense of comportment of a character by simple up and down gestures of the chin, neck or head. The costumes of the main actor in nōgaku theatre is particularly more ornate and ornamented luxuriously than those of lesser characters and particularly more so that that of the chorus.

Unlike Greek theatre, which tended (as scholar believe) toward more stylized costumes from its origins to its fated end, nōgaku costumes first, at the theatre traditions origins, were meant to resemble quotidian, everyday get-ups that real people would wear as such characters were portrayed, but by the 16th century AD, the costumes systematically became more stylized, and such was written into the code of the long standing nōgaku tradition.

The chorus in nōgaku (jiutai) did not wear masks. And their costumes were simply elaborated kimonos with specially accentuated shoulders and waist-coats. Similar to as in Greek theatre, the chorus and musicians were meant to blend together into an indistinguishable crowd of anonymous bystanders, commentators, or interrogators.

Corporal Movement & GestureThe most striking similarity related to the use of masks in both nōgaku and Greek theatre was that the use of masks in turn lead the actors to favor large corporal movements and gestures as a means to evoke or express and emotion; albeit, gesture was much more grandiose in Greek theatre, as the movements had to impress and resound for an audience of tens of thousands, some of which were as much as 50 metres away from the orchêstra floor. In nōgaku or noh (nō) theatre, gesture of the actors is equally codified (maybe even far more so than in Greek theatre past -- there's no way of telling!), but much more subtle and nuanced, as even the slightest corporal movement can be seen by nōgaku's much smaller pool of spectators.