INTERVIEW: Japan Society goes virtual for Mansai Nomura’s kyogen performances
Photo: Two kyogen performances are being presented virtually by Japan Society in New York City. Photo courtesy of Shinji Masakawa from Setagaya Public Theater / Provided by Japan Society with permission.
Kyogen, a 700-year-old comedic art form from Japan, is at the center of two virtual performances from New York City’s Japan Society. Mansai Nomura, the acclaimed Japanese kyogen actor and film star, presents online interpretations of the traditional piece Shimizu (Spring Water) and the relatively new work Kagami-kaja (A Mirror Servant), which was written by Seiko Ito.
For the unbeknownst, Shimizu is a parable that depicts the preparation of a traditional tea ceremony in 15th-century Japan, according to press notes. In the story, a servant tells some tall tales involving an ogre who haunts a nearby spring, all in a scheme for the servant to avoid fetching some water for the ceremony.
Shimizu is the prelude to the newer piece, Kagami-kaja, which was commissioned and directed by Mansai. There is a throughline with Shimizu in that this work also depicts a servant, but this time the character finds himself trapped in a mirror. The performance piece first premiered in 2000.
Audiences can expect an introduction for each piece from Mansai, who is an in-demand artist. In 2021, he will oversee the opening and closing ceremonies for the summer Olympics in Japan.
Viewers of these kyogen performances can expect dialogue being in Japanese with English subtitles. The on-demand performances are available through Dec. 31. Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Mansai about the two works. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How much has COVID-19 disrupted your professional plans and performance schedule? Do you believe these virtual offerings from Japan Society are as thrilling as being in a live theater setting?
I couldn’t have a performance for almost four months. No work. While I kept practicing with my family members, including my son, it became inappropriate to practice with my disciples. I had to hold off on that. We did online presentations and learned to deliver our work through digital media.
I would like to say that it was a good experience. However, our work is supposed to be shown through live performances, and I felt that my sense of ‘performing’ got a bit dull. That is, when we were back on stage performing live, I was surprised, ‘Am I supposed to feel this exhausted after a stage performance?’
During the days that I had no stage performances, I kept exercising, such as running and practicing, so my stamina should have deteriorated. But, I realized there is a huge difference between when you perform for an audience and when you have none. The energy level that you’re required to bring out is different.
When theaters were allowed to reopen during the first phase in Japan, theaters could only have 50 percent of their normal capacity. Then, the following phase allowed full capacity. I noticed that my exhaustion was even larger when the audience seats were full — the more audience we had, the more tired I felt. It felt like I might be consumed by the audiences’ energy that was focused on watching me.
I also noticed a difference in the volume of my voice. It traveled further when the audience was half-full. It was like the audience’s presence was sucking up the performers’ voices. In a sense, it was a valuable time to have that experience. I usually don’t get much time to ‘log off.’ I became hungry to perform again.
What do you like about Shimizu (Spring Water)? Is it a challenging piece to perform?
The master and Taro-kaja setup is a standard in kyogen plays. In noh performance, a mask would never be taken off because it represents a certain character in the play. Whereas in kyogen, a mask is used just as a prop; therefore, it can be worn and/or taken off in a play. That is, a character can transform into someone/something else by taking on and off a mask. That is the interesting thing about Shimizu.
Talking about Kagami-kaja, I don’t want to be a spoiler and say too much, but you might interpret that the person who gets trapped inside the mirror at the end may transform into an ogre himself. So, in kyogen, masks are treated as ‘symbols.’ To put it more simply, kyogen uses masks like a fun prop.
What was your collaboration like with writer Seiko Ito on Kagami-kaja (A Mirror Servant)? How did you two work together?
When I asked him to write a new play, I asked him not to write too many details. I said this based on my own experience. A kyogen script is better when there’s lots of room to interpret. A script that reads like a well-written piece of literature is not a good kyogen script. In other words, a good kyogen script is one that is not very interesting to read.
The thrill of kyogen for me is thinking of how to turn such a flat script into to a fun performance, how to add color to a flatly-depicted character to make him a realistic human being. If you read the script of Shimizu, it is not very interesting. But, for example, the scene in which Taro-kaja wears an ogre mask and threatens his master, or the scene when he orders his master to not look at him when he leaves, we perform to depict a ‘situation’ unfolding on stage.
So I asked Seiko Ito not to write any details, just write scenes for which I can create that kind of situation on stage. And, while we were discussing, the idea of making a comedy using a mirror came to us, like the famous silent film act, the Marx brothers. Or, for our generation, Ken Shimura and Kenji Sawada’s parody TV skit. We realized the such a mirror act, which is universally funny, has not been seen in kyogen. So, we decided to make a new kyogen using a mirror as its theme. Especially because kyogen is very good at set stances and posing, it’s well-suited for incorporating a mirror act. I asked him to write nothing for the scene where Kagami-kaja and Taro-kaja dance together. That’s kind of how we worked. More stage directions said ‘something like this’ instead of actual lines.
Regarding the ending, I vaguely thought that it would not be interesting if it had a predictable ending. It was a ‘new’ kyogen, so I wanted it to resonate with people living today. I wanted to create something a traditional kyogen plays does not cover — something that addresses a theme straightforwardly shared with modern audiences after watching the show, like ‘an identity crisis,’ etc.
It’s kind of a meta-kyogen. If you are familiar with kyogen, when you see the ending, ‘I won’t forgive you,’ it feels like, ‘Yeah, I am a watching kyogen.’ Most new kyogen plays follow this typical pattern that ends with a nice laugh. When we made new kyogen adaptations of Shakespeare, such as The Kyogen of Errors or The Merry Wives of Windsor, they also end with a hearty laugh. Because I had been doing that kind of thing too much back then, I wanted something darker — something that gives a chill at the end. I remember aiming for that.
Do you believe the lessons of these two pieces still mean a lot in 2020? Are some of these lessons timeless?
Kagami-kaja was originally planned to be performed in person at Japan Society, so it was not selected with this global pandemic in mind. But it carries a big theme, especially now. It stimulates you to reflect upon yourself and makes you wonder about the boundary between yourself and others. In this isolated society, you might compare to versions of yourself: ‘before the pandemic’ and ‘after the pandemic.’ Those two states might be quite the opposite. Then, you might think, ‘Which state is my true self?’ ‘I wonder who I really am?’ You might think that your facial expression looks different. Or rather, your inner self is coming out through your facial features. Your face signifies your life. It’s not that your face looks strange, but rather your whole existence has become strange.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Japan Society presents virtual performances of Mansai Nomura’s Shimizu (Spring Water) and Kagami-kaja (A Mirror Servant) through Dec. 31. Click here for more information and tickets.
