Kyogen - Japanese Theatre - A visual journey

Many years ago when I lived in Japan

I spent a lot of time going to different cultural events. Festivals, temples, shrines, performances, you name it. Thanks to a friend of mine we were able to attend some Classical Japanese Theatre. The type he found tickets to was called Kyogen, which literally translates to mad or wild speech. And let me tell you, it was definitely filled with a lot of that.

A form of art with an interesting and mixed past, it developed alongside Noh as a sort of intermission. A type of comedic acting, filled with exaggeration and ritualized humor meant to entertain. It served as a balance to the tragedies whose interludes it filled. Tragedy, humor, tragedy, humor... you get the idea. Over time Kyogen evolved into it's own thing and as of the modern era you can find it performed on it's own.

The plays are quick and to the point, lasting about 10 minutes.

There are usually only a few characters, with recognizable stock roles such as the master, and servants of a household. And you can expect a lot of slapstick humor, not quite Three Stooges, but close to. I'm not a huge fan of those kinds of jokes, but I still got a lot of laughs out of this.

I think the performance I attended wasn't quite traditional. I say that because according to my research, the actors are supposed to be males only, and you can see some women in the photos. Unless I'm wrong... Costumes are usually quite complex, but Kyogen lacks the number of crazy masks like Noh and other similar art forms. Only demons and gods get those. Another cool thing, on the traditional end, is that women are usually represented by a white sash wrapped around their head, laid over the front, and tucked into their the belt like symbolic braids.

How they move themselves is quite complex.

To slide across the stage underneath their costume they shift their legs back and forth in a way that keeps them straight and level, no bobbing, so it gives this crazy illusion of floating. But, at times they stomp their feet for that special emphasis. And, they always keep the gaze level, facing their counterpart unless delivering a long speech, when they turn to face the audience.

There are several hundreds of plays specific to Kyogen but many of them are no longer performed. The reason why is the jokes. A lot of them were era specific, so just like watching old movies now, what was funny then can now be considered offensive. For those of you non-native Japanese speakers, be prepared for a good amount of non-standard words, phrases, and grammar. It's definitely a challenge to follow along, but fun.

I hope you learned a little from this blurb on Kyogen

A type of Classic Japanese Theatre. I know when researching it I learned a lot. Things I didn't know even when watching the performance. Please enjoy this visual journey through a series of plays I had the luck to see all those years ago.

Big thanks to Wikipedia for giving me all this amazing information to write this post with :)