Zeami turned Noh from village entertainment into Japan's classical stage art
A teenage actor from a travelling troupe caught the eye of a 17-year-old shogun, and Japanese theatre changed course. Zeami Motokiyo went on to write around 50 Noh plays and the first Japanese treatises on the philosophy of drama, then saw favour vanish and was sent into exile on Sado Island.
Zeami was born near Nara in 1363 and grew up acting in the troupe of his father, Kan'ami, which played mostly around Kyoto. When the company performed for Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the young shogun was captivated, and his patronage carried a form associated with rural working people into aristocratic circles. The low-born boy's closeness to the ruler scandalised courtiers, but it also got him a classical education from the poet and statesman Nijo Yoshimoto.
Patronage in 1374 was a rare honour for an actor, and after Kan'ami died in 1385 Zeami led the troupe to new success. He wrote by first choosing a subject, then fixing the structure, and only then composing the words. He drew on The Tale of the Heike and on Japanese and Chinese poetry, blended popular dance and music with courtly verse, and wove in Zen imagery. Izutsu and Kinuta are among the plays universally credited to him.
Over roughly four decades he produced 21 critical writings, meant for a small circle of colleagues since troupe knowledge passed down within families. The first, the Fushikaden, or Style and the Flower, analyses the three-part rhythm of jo-ha-kyu, which he regarded as universal. The later Kakyo turns towards spiritual beauty, the actor's voice and the actor's mind. These texts only reached a wide readership in the 20th century.
Later shoguns were cooler. Yoshimochi preferred a rival style, and Zeami survived on support from rich merchants. Yoshinori, shogun from 1429, favoured Zeami's nephew Onnami, whose performances featured the demons Zeami seldom staged, and in 1434 banished Zeami to Sado. His last recorded work, written two years into exile, describes his fate with calm acceptance. He died in 1443 and was buried in Yamato.
Source: Zeami Motokiyo
