Kyogen And Its Essence Essay Research Paper

Kyogen And Its Essence Essay, Research Paper

Ever since its establishment in the Muromachi period, Kyogen has always been

considered a subordinate of the Noh Theater. It has been regarded as something

of less seriousness and of only a simplistic comedy play, which can never stand

on the same level as the more sophisticated and serious Noh. Whenever I hear

people talk about Noh and Kyogen, people refer to Kyogen as easier to be

understood of the two and funny, therefore there is no need to dwell deeper. For

example, a commentator at the beginning of Noh/Kyogen performance in Kanagawa

Pref. Introduced the Noh play, Takasago, in great detail. He touched on the

historical siginificance of Shinto shrines at Takasago and Suma and on how yugen

is portrayed in the play, whereas Kyogen was introduced in rather shallow

manner. He explained that since Kyogen is so much easier to watch and comprehend

there is not much need for him to go into detail.

The commentator does have a point in that Kyogen is easier to follow than Noh

plays when one considers only the outer surface plot line. In order to follow a

Noh play, one has to have some historical knowledge of the time and of the

complex emotion the characters are trying to portray, whereas Kyogen is, simply,

about silly lords, servants, son-in-law, priest, devils whom everybody can

somehow relate to. Yet in this paper, I will make a statement that Kyogen is not

just about following the basic plot line and laughing about the silly acts of

the characters. In order to really appreciate Kyogen, one has to try to break

through the outer surface and try to reach the core, where the essence is. And

the essence, I believe is that these silly characters are not much different

from us, the audience. Thus we must take a look at these characters and their

actions and compare them to our own. The mistakes we make everyday and the

embarrassing moment we face everyday are being portrayed by these Kyogen actors

and in the play for us. I believe Kyogen has been looked down upon throughout

its history in the shadow of Noh Theater. I am arguing here to reconsider this

distorted perspective on Kyogen by looking deeper into what I think is the

essence of Kyogen.

First, I will present some of the comments made by scholars and critiques who

have helped shape this distorted view that Kyogen is something less than Noh.

The Japanese encyclopedia says that Kyogen is a light, comedy play, which gets

played in between more serious and heavy Noh. It goes on to say that Kyogen is

played in order to loosen up the audience from the stiff performance of Noh.

Again this causes problem, because it bases its comment on the premise that

Kyogen is not a serious play. In order to enhance this distortion, other

respected scholars have commented on the same line. Ienaga Saburo states in

Nihon Bunka Shi that the manner of Kyogen, its bluntness, lacks profoundness and

its structure is very weak in imagination and uniquess. He goes on to argue that

one has to admit the artistic shallowness of Kyogen when compared to the Noh

theater (p. 212).

Tada Tomio in his article for Nogakushichou, touches on the shallowness of

Kyogen compared to Noh. He states that Noh, with is uniqueness and imagainative

manner, has created a world of its own. Whereas Kyogen lacks the proufound

script that is avilable for Noh and is only a skit for elementary kids. Tada

argues strongly the danger of performing only Kyogen, because he believes that

Kyogen is not a comedy in its true nature, since it does not try to answer the

problems we humans face everyday.

In my view, these two scholars are missing the whole point of how to view

Kyogen. They are only following the story line and forgetting the fact that the

silly situation like the one in Kamabara can happen to anybody. In Kamabara, the

husband decides to kill himself out of the fight he had with his wife. Yet he is

not able to follow through all the way and decides to postpone his death. It may

not be in the exactly same situation, where you might be faced to commit a

suicide but it could be in a less dramatic manner. For example, a friend of mine

at a flute jury test was asked the question, .what do you play.. up on the

stage. The jury obviously wanted to know what piece she was playing with her

flute, but she answered, .um, the flute.. This may seem stupid on her part,

but when one considers the fact that she was nervous and stressed out from

playing in front of people up on a stage, one can feel sympathy towards this

poor flute player. My point is that these embarrassing moments, where you wish

you have more guts and wit to do something about it, happens daily.

Yamamoto Tojiro, the head of the Yamamoto family of the Okura school, argues

in his book Kyogen no Susume that Kyogen is meant to be not dramatic and

imaginative. He does this b

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