Kyogen Traditional Japanese Drama
Kyogen is among the four Japanese classical theater dramas with others, including the kabuki, bunraku, and Noh. The Noh is the broadest drama theaters and includes the comic theater of Kyogen, which was developed in the 14th century and followed the oldest extant professional theater in the world (Wells 127). Although developed together, Kyogen is inseparable from Noh, with Kyogen being attached to comics with its theme being laughter with our humanness emphasized. Besides, Kyogen, as a Farce, has a small repertoire that comprises not more than 250 pieces that apply the topology of farces in its text analysis. All the Kyogen plots fall under one another and within all the farces categories of comedy. However, there are some exceptions to Kyogen that comprise auspicious plays that do not have the slightest bit of any funny moment. Instead, they are either religious or serve entirely different social and theatrical purposes from other forms of comedy. Further, the Kyogen consist of dances and songs performed explicitly to bring down god’s blessings upon the people. Therefore, the typical and distinct subset of Kyogen is all about comedy, accompanied by a farce plot that serves as an illustration of how neatly the fits are made to the main body of the play.
History of Kyogen 400
There Kyogen is thought to have its roots from the Japanese and Chinese entertainment scenes of the 8th century and earlier, which evolved around the Sarugaku in the subsequent centuries. By the 14th century, there was a clear distinction among the Sarugaku groups of performers of the Noh plays and those performing the humorous Kyogen. As a part of Noh, Kyogen got the patronage of the aristocracy of the military, and up until the Meiji restoration in 1868, the drama was prominent (Izuru 31). Ever since the Kyogen has been alive, especially among social gatherings and families and also from the Okura and the Izumi schools and today, the professional kyogen performers are independent and distinct from the Noh programs. Additionally, Kyogen, as a comic relief on-stage, is a drama with two genres of drama and comedy. The two genres are performed with different actors both on stage and within one synchronized program. Like the Noh, Kyogen has taken its present form from the Muromachi period of the history of Japan in the 14th and 16th centuries. The drama has been handed down to the oral traditions within schools and led to the development of trained actors.
The Kyogen texts were first committed to writing during the Edo period. They are currently preserved and interpreted by many schools in Japan and other Asian countries such as China and continue to be an unbroken tradition following the script of the Okura and the Izumi. For instance, the greatest actor and master of the Noh and Kyogen are Zeami. They existed between 1363 and 1443 and started the text writing in the 1400s, giving classical writings on philosophy as well as interpreting the Noh and Kyogen apart from counting on the origins and the acting of the Kyogen scripts (Izuru 44). Besides, the costumes, settings, texts, and the style of acting have trickled down from the 1300s to the current generation with the genres of drama and comedy being maintained. For example, the first photographs of the outdoor Kyogen stage were Yasaka Shrine, which is found in Kyoto Japan, with the program today showing plays in a theater stage that depicts the traditional Kyoto shrine. Also, as Noh has musical instruments, Kyogen does not have. However, the actors get to interact with the audience and rejoice in dance and songs, which is expected in any comedy. Therefore, the concept of character in traditional Kyogen has been simplified in today’s drama, making it more deliberate and polished.
Performances and Plays
The word Kyogen means an independent comic play performed between two plays of Noh, and the roles are taken up by the characters is referred to as the aikyogen. In this regard, among the tasks taken up by the Kyogen form an integral part of the whole Noh play and help in defining the plot and theme of the drama and, more importantly, the players serve the role of bridging between the first and second acts (Wells 128). Later, the Kyogen performer is seen on stage alone and givens an explanation to the story in a colloquial language, an act that gives the Noh Shite a time to change the costumes and get ready for the next action. In the case of uneducated feudal era audiences, the play is made quickly to understand by the Kyogen. The current state of the Kyogen has over 250 independent plays with most of them forming the classical system that is divided into several groups such as the waki Kyogen which is part of the auspicious plays, the Taro Kaja plays, the daimyo, muko, moni, and Yama Bushi among others (Wells 131). Therefore, the Kyogen character costumes are much simpler than those of the Noh and base there actual dressing on medieval Japan.
Farce and Satire in Kyogen
The Farce characters in the Kyogen are simple, given that they are resilient to physical slapstick and the cartoon-like characters as well as their lack of heightened witty dialogues. In this regard, the Farce has always been the original form of comic upon which the other comics are based, and in fact, the original Farce is rare and far from being simple. Today’s Farce is sophisticated and carefully balances the patterned characters and action. According to Wells, Farce is notoriously challenging to act and produce on stage. In some ways, it is not easy to establish authority and propriety that makes it extreme of all the comics on stage (127). In other ways, it is also challenging to develop a severe comic form, but in different ways, it is conservative in Japanese. In the studies of Farce, there is a demonstration of the paradox that is aimed at achieving the detailed attention to the structure and balance of the play ad carefully balance the jurisdiction and allow for some form of mayhem. In this case, both the jokers and the target audience are chosen carefully, with the former intelligently indulging the audience through tricks and indulgence and later on justify their inaptitude, faults, and weaknesses.
Moreover, both the Kyogen drama and comics lack the self-awareness aspect and the ability to reflect on the plight and put more attention to the effective action. Typically, the farce plot is conformed with several patters with each of the patterns adapting and emphasizing a limited nature of aggression that usually ensures that the pattern is conserved under the current challenge of the comic conflict that safely restores to the end. According to Izuru, the Kyogen comic patterns include first the humiliation as well as the deception farces where the unpleasant victims are exposed without necessarily allowing retaliation (17). The second aspect is the reversal forces, where the tables are turned to the original joker, allowing the victim to retaliate. The third aspect is the equilibrium formation, where the quarreling farces narrow there focus and ensure a perpetual Mito kind of movement with the opposing forces wrestling each other. Generally, the plot of the Kyogen comics is driven by an elaborate series of misunderstandings and errors that give rise to the may cross the line between the adversaries. The source of the jokes depicts a power structure that imitates objects and dominates machines against humans. Nevertheless, these patterns ensure that the plot is controlled, and the play sticks to the theme and allows the jokes to indulge themselves.
In discussing the universality of the forms of Kyogen comedy and theaters plays in the traditional Japanese drams, it is essential, to begin with, an understanding of the terms, theme, and the following of the plot. The Noh and Kyogen drama aptly summarizes the different kinds of characters and scenarios, as well as the acting styles and humor that re-found in the many of the Kyogen acts. The stock character and the more significant extent the life-styled acting is usually marked, and the characters are seen n to reflect and particularly become sympathetic. Besides, the Kyogen plot conforms to the typical; Japanese traditions and plot structures that emphasize the balance between trickery and restoration of authority while at the same time addressing the social aspects of society. Another feature of the Kyogen is the avoidance of vulgarity as the drama conforms to the analysis of the characters and the unequivocal Farce, which is seen in the indulgence rather than the Japanese society during the time. The Kyogen has a long-functioning relief from the severe drama serious of the Noh theaters that are independent and intentionally used between the parts of the Noh.
Overall, by definition, Kyogen cannot function well as comic relief without the Noh. Hence, it can be concluded that the Kyogen is an appendix of the Noh and a brief comic part on stage that does not use any instrumentals. A ken look at the Kyogen reveals a repertoire whose plot falls under the several types of farces. In this regard, the identification of Kyogen’s principal structure is straight forward as the plot combines the overreaching pattern of the other forms. Given that the Kyogen are short comic plays, they usually need time to develop and elaborate the snowball plots as the standard feature of the 19th and 20th centuries. Despite having a simple structure and plot, the Kyogen is also simplistic in there construction and complexity may not be achieved through the strict limitation of time. In this regard, the sophisticated pieces are performed as a result of the combination of the various forms of humiliation, equilibrium, and farcical deceptions within the plot. In regards to the characters, the performers should best identify their audience and indulge in all manner of trickeries to make them laugh at their jokes.