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Author Archives: onthebridgeway
Varieties of Influence, or What Is This Thing Called Noh
On an airplane this past weekend, I found myself reading several of the “modern Noh plays” of Yukio Mishima. Each of these short works is based on a particular classic Noh play, transposed into a modern setting and augmented to … Continue reading
Posted in Theatre Nohgaku, This Lingering Life
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Noh and the Singularity of the Moment
The telephone rings. The hospital is calling. “You had better come now.” You rush to the bedside of a person you love. Time is short. She is still aware, but it is as if she were being pulled away into … Continue reading
Posted in Countdown to Cordelia, Theatre Nohgaku
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Noh Stories, New Stories: At a Noh Writing Workshop
As much as I am affected by the music and visual elements of Noh, I confess that my strongest attraction to the genre is to its poetry and narrative framework. My favorite plays are those of the type known as … Continue reading
Posted in Theatre Nohgaku
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Translating Noh into Now: Mikiko Uesugi’s Set for This Lingering Life
Scenic designer Mikiko Uesugi was familiar with most of the stories in This Lingering Life long before she started working on the project. In Japan, her maternal grandmother had studied Noh with Umewaka Rokurou-sensei and began taking her to performances … Continue reading
Posted in This Lingering Life
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Nine Noh Play Synopses in One English-Language Blog Post
This Lingering Life is not a difficult play to follow on its own terms, but some audience members will be intrigued to know that this modern play, in which restless spirits and human beings occupy the same space, transforms and … Continue reading
Posted in This Lingering Life
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Gender Crossings: Women in Noh
The Noh repertoire includes two groups of plays centered on women: Woman plays constitute the third category of Noh plays and are often cited as the finest examples of the aesthetic of yugen. In almost all cases, these plays portray … Continue reading
Posted in This Lingering Life
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Four Ways of Looking at an Angel
Stories from Noh in Colloquial English The language in which classic Noh plays are performed is an archaic form of Japanese. In addition, the poetry of Noh is paratactical and allusive, and lines are chanted or delivered in stylized speech, … Continue reading
Posted in This Lingering Life
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Where’s Atsumori
“It was only last night that we sang and danced to bid farewell to this life.” (From This Lingering Life) It is common practice for a Noh play to extract one character or focus on one scene from Japanese history … Continue reading
Posted in This Lingering Life
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From Life to Life
In many a Noh play, a traveler—often but not always a priest—encounters a mysterious person who, in the course of the play, is revealed to be the manifestation of a restless spirit. This spirit, commonly that of a prominent literary … Continue reading
Posted in This Lingering Life
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Looking Forward to Lingering
It is with great enthusiasm that I anticipate the world-premiere production of Chiori Miyagawa’s This Lingering Life, playing at the Z Space on June 5-14, 2014. And it is also with pleasure that I begin this series of blog posts, … Continue reading
Posted in This Lingering Life
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