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Frayed Fabrications: Feminine Mobility, Surrogate Bodies, and Robe Usage in Noh Drama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2019

Reginald Jackson
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Extract

How should we understand the role robes play within noh dance-drama's enactments of femininity? In the above poem Genji's jilted lover, Rokujō, bemoans her inability to keep her vengeful spirit from besieging the Lady Aoi, for whom Genji has spurned her. Within the worldview of Murasaki Shikibu's early eleventh-century narrative, to bind the hem was to tether the restless spirit to its host's body, like a tourniquet stanching spectral energies from seeping to infect victims. The famous noh play Aoi no Ue (Lady Aoi), in which Aoi is played not by an actor but by a short-sleeved robe (kosode), activates the poem's metaphor onstage. Moreover, the Japanese poem's final term, tsuma, signifies both as “robe hem” and “wife,” foregrounding a gendered dimension sutured to problematic notions of feminine deportment and mobility whose dramatic manifestations merit exploration.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 355 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 2019 

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Footnotes

I dedicate this article to Monica Bethe, a remarkable teacher who introduced me to noh nearly twenty years ago, and for my money is the most learned, lucid commentator on noh costumes around. Her vast knowledge and passion has inspired me since, and this piece contributes to a conversation begun in college. I also gratefully acknowledge the editorial suggestions made by an anonymous reviewer, and Marlis Schweitzer's invaluable input.

References

Endnotes

1. [Murasaki Shikibu,] Genji monogatari, ed. Yanai Shigeshi et al., Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei 19–23, 5 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993–6), 19: 307. Translation mine.

2. Murasaki Shikibu (973–1014?) was a midranking lady-in-waiting who completed The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari) circa 1008.

3. “Tsuma” refers more specifically to the inner hem or “skirt” of the robe, but stands for the robe more generally. See Norma Field, The Splendor of Longing in “The Tale of Genji” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 50.

4. I use “robe” as the general term for clothing many non-Japanese readers would consider kimono. However, there are myriad specialized types of robes used in noh, many of whose dimensions vary significantly from that of a standard modern kimono. Therefore, I specify when it matters to the description or argument, avoiding “kimono” unless it actually matches a more generic non-Japanese image of such a robe.

5. See O'Neill, P. G., “The Structure of Kusemai,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 21.1 (1958): 100–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Shimazaki Chifumi, The Noh, vol. 3: Woman Noh (Tokyo: Hinoki Shoten, 1976–7), 3.

6. Rachel Hann and Sidsel Bech, “Critical Costume,” Scene 2.1–2 (2014): 3–8, at 3.

7. Monks, Aoife, The Actor in Costume (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Ibid.

9. Hannah, Dorita and Mehzoud, Sven, “Presentation/Representation/Re-presentation: Fragments Out of the Dark to a Lived Experience,” in Expanding Scenography: On the Authoring of Space, ed. Brejzek, Thea (Prague: Arts and Theatre Institute, 2011), 102–13Google Scholar, at 103.

10. Cresswell, Tim, On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World (New York: Routledge, 2006), 265Google Scholar.

11. Ibid., 54.

12. Wilkie, Fiona, Performance, Transport and Mobility: Making Passage (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. See Urry, John, Mobilities (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 7–8Google Scholar.

14. Cresswell, 55.

15. Urry, John, “Connections,” Environment and Planning D 22.1 (2004): 27–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 28.

16. Cresswell, 15.

17. Sheller, Mimi, “Gendered Mobilities: Epilogue,” in Gendered Mobilities, ed. Uteng, Tanu Priya and Cresswell, Tim (Hampshire, UK: Ashgate, 2008), 257–65Google Scholar, at 257.

18. Zeami, Zenchiku, ed. Omote Akira and Katō Shūichi, Nihon shisō taikei 24 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1974), 21. Translation mine.

19. Regarding Zeami's concept of the actor's body, see Matsuoka Shinpei, “Zeami no shintai” (The Bodily Expression Created by Zeami), in International Symposium on the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Property: Nō—Its Transmission and Regeneration (Tokyo: Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural Properties, 1991), 57–68.

20. The phrase “female gentleness” comes from an earlier translation of Zeami's advice quoted earlier in the text: “To play kusemai, shirabyōshi, or mad women, the actor should hold a fan or a sprig of flowers, for example, loosely in his hand in order to represent female gentleness.” Zeami, On the Art of the Nō Drama: The Major Treatises of Zeami, trans. J. Thomas Rimer and Yamazaki Masakazu (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 11.

21. I use “costume” for convenience, given the theatrical context, although historically this notion was likely less specialized than today. Hare notes, “We don't have a precise idea of the stage attire in Zeami's and Zōami's [fl. ca. 1400–10] day. It would probably not be correct to refer to ‘costumes’ in that early period, because stage clothing seems not to have been clearly distinguishable from clothes worn in a variety of offstage circumstances.” Hare, Tom, “Rituals, Dreams, and Tales of Adventure: A Material History of Noh Drama,” in Miracles and Mischief: Noh and Kyōgen Theater in Japan, ed. Takeda, Sharon Sadako, with Bethe, Monica (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2002), 10–41Google Scholar, at 24.

22. The three plays in this genre regarded to be the most challenging and sacred are Sekidera Komachi, Higaki, and Obasute.

23. Drott, Edward R., Buddhism and the Transformation of Old Age in Medieval Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016), xxCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Zeami's fondness for old-women figures as vehicles for consummate acting was unusual for his time, for in medieval tales, “While the aged male body came to be regarded as the most common avatar for divine beings, demons were often portrayed taking the form of old women.” Drott, Edward R., “Aging in Medieval Japanese Buddhism,” Religion Compass 9.1 (2015): 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 9.

24. Zeami, Zeami: Performance Notes, trans. Tom Hare (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 143–4.

25. Ibid., 218–19.

26. See, for example, “Nō/Kyōgen Masks and Performance: Essays and Interviews,” comp. Rebecca Teele, special issue, Mime Journal 10 (1984); and Tanabe Saburōsuke, “The Birth and Evolution of Noh Masks,” in Miracles and Mischief, 43–69.

27. For a feminist study of women's portrayal in noh, see Haruko, Wakita, Nōgaku no naka no onnatachi: Onnamai no fūshi (The Women within Nō Dramas: The Impressions of Female Dance) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2005)Google Scholar.

28. For an in-depth explanation of how costumes convey dramatic meaning, see Monica Bethe, “The Staging of Noh: Costumes and Masks in a Performance Context,” in Miracles and Mischief, 177–227.

29. Bethe, Monica and Brazell, Karen, Dance in the Nō Theater, vol. 1: Dance Analysis (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University China–Japan Program, 1982), 100–1Google Scholar.

30. Betsky, Aaron, Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire (New York: William Morrow, 1997), 22Google Scholar.

31. Kunio, Komparu, The Noh Theater: Principles and Perspectives, trans. Corddry, Jane (New York: Waterhill, Tokyo: Tankosha, 1983), 242Google Scholar.

32. See Goodwin, Janet R., “Shadows of Transgression: Heian and Kamakura Constructions of Prostitution,” Monumenta Nipponica, 55.3 (2000): 327–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. Japanese Nō Dramas, trans. Tyler, Royall (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 188Google Scholar. Subsequent citations of this volume will appear parenthetically in the text, labeled rt.

34. Bethe, “Staging of Noh,” 203. Variant performances place the chōken on the bridgeway's third pine.

35. For a richly illustrated account of how the play's costuming functions, see ibid., 199–205.

36. Dōjōji, in which a woman dances for admission to a temple, exemplifies this. The play Jinen Koji (Layman Selfsame) involves a similar situation, albeit with a male preacher dancing for other men.

37. For example, a 1427 diary entry records Zeami's receipt of two thousand bolts of silk from the shogun. See Kitamura Tetsurō, Nō shōzoku (Noh costumes), Nihon no bijutsu 46 (Tokyo: Shibundō, 1970), 21. This practice of gifting intensified as samurai patrons competed to bequeath the most lavish items on their sponsored troupes. Taiyō some to ori shirizu, vol. 2: Kosode nō shōzoku, ed. Kitamura Tetsurō (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1977), 61–70.

38. Sharon Sadako Takeda, “Fashionable Dress or Theatrical Costume: Textiles and the Evolution of Noh Robes,” in Miracles and Mischief, 70–99, at 76.

39. Shikibu, Murasaki, The Tale of Genji, trans. Seidensticker, Edward, 2 vols. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976)Google Scholar, 1: 167.

40. Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science), The Noh Drama: Ten Plays from the Japanese, 3 vols. (Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 1955–60), 2 (1959): 96.

41. Bargen, Doris G., A Woman's Weapon: Spirit Possession in “The Tale of Genji” (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), 9, xixGoogle Scholar.

42. Murasaki, trans. Seidensticker, 1: 169.

43. Haruko, Wakita, “Marriage and Property in Premodern Japan from the Perspective of Women's History,” trans. Gay, Suzanne, Journal of Japanese Studies 10.1 (1984): 73–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 79–80, 92.

44. Brown, Steven T., Theatricalities of Power: The Cultural Politics of Noh (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 67Google Scholar.

45. “Checklist of the Exhibition,” Miracles and Mischief, ed. Takeda, 228–75, at 246.

46. Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai, 2: 94.

47. Ibid.

48. Zeami, Zenchiku, ed. Omote Akira and Katō Shūichi, Nihon shisō taikei 24 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1974), 263. Translation mine.

49. Zeami, trans. Hare, 156.

50. Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai, 2: 94.

51. For comparison photographs of female, male, and demon stances, see Yamasaki Yūichirō and Miura Hiroko, Hajimete no Nō / Kyōgen (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1999), 86–7.

52. Janet Goff, Noh Drama and “The Tale of Genji”: The Art of Allusion in Fifteen Classical Plays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 125–6.

53. Wilkie, 8.

54. Cresswell, 265.

55. Yashima Masaharu notes these plays’ shared physical and linguistic gestures. See Masaharu, Yashima, “Izutsu no nochiba no nekkyō: Kinuta to rōjō mono ni oyobitsutsu,” in Zeami no nō to geiron (Tokyo: Miyai Shoten, 1985), 470–5Google Scholar.

56. Blacker, Carmen, The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1986), 10Google Scholar.

57. Monica Bethe, “The Use of Costumes in Nō Drama,” in “Five Centuries of Japanese Kimono: On This Sleeve of Fondest Dreams,” special issue (exh. cat.), Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 18.1 (1992): 6–19, 101, at 11–12.

58. Bethe, “Use of Costumes,” 12.

59. Bethe, Monica, Emmert, Richard, and Tyler, Royall, Noh Performance Guide: “Matsukaze” (Tokyo: National Noh Theatre, 1992), 72Google Scholar.

60. Monica Bethe, personal communication (in-person conversation), Kyoto, February 2000.

61. Cresswell, 23.

62. Stalter-Pace, Sunny, “Underground Theater: Theorizing Mobility through Modern Subway Dramas,” Transfers 5.3 (2015): 4–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 17.

63. Ibid.