Zeami

Zeami (born 1363, Japan—died Sept. 1, 1443, Kyōto?) was the greatest playwright and theorist of the Japanese Noh theatre. He and his father, Kan’ami (1333–84), were the creators of the Noh drama in its present form.

Under the patronage of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, whose favour Zeami enjoyed after performing before him in 1374, the Noh was able to shake off the crudities of its past and to develop as a complex and aristocratic theatre. After his father’s death, Zeami became the chief figure in the Noh. He directed the Kanze school of Noh that his father had established and that had profound and lasting influence. Zeami not only continued to perform brilliantly but also wrote and revised plays prolifically. He is credited with about 90 (and most of the greatest) of the approximately 230 plays in the present repertoire. In 1422 he became a Zen monk, and his son Motomasa succeeded him. But Ashikaga Yoshinori, who became shogun in 1429, favoured On’ami (Zeami’s nephew) and refused to allow the son to perform before him. Motomasa died in 1432, and Yoshinori exiled Zeami to the island of Sado in 1434. After the shogun died in 1441, Zeami returned to Kyōto.

In his treatises—of which the most important is the collection Fūshi kaden (1400–18; “The Transmission of the Flower of Acting Style,” also known as the Kaden sho), “flower” representing the freshness and appropriateness of fine acting—written as manuals for his pupils, Zeami said the actor must master three basic roles: the warrior, the woman, and the old person, including the singing and dancing appropriate to each. The two main elements in Noh acting were monomane, “an imitation of things,” or the representational aspect, and yūgen, the symbolic aspect and spiritual core of the Noh, which took precedence and which became the touchstone of excellence in the Noh. Zeami wrote, “The essence of yūgen is true beauty and gentleness,” but not mere outward beauty: it had to suggest behind the text of the plays and the noble gestures of the actors a world impossible to define yet ultimately real. Such plays as Matsukaze, written by Kan’ami and adapted by Zeami, have a mysterious stillness that seems to envelop the visible or audible parts of the work. In other of Zeami’s dramas there is less yūgen and more action and, occasionally, even realism.