Noh Theatre
Arts programme setting with an INTERVIEWER and a nice PROFESSOR.
INTERVIEWER: Good evening. Tonight on World Theatre I am joined by Professor George Alder who is going to tell us something about the traditional Now Theatre of Japan. Professor, could you begin by telling us how Now Theatre started?
PROFESSOR: Noh.
INTERVIEWER: I beg your pardon?
PROFESSOR: Not Now, Noh.
INTERVIEWER: But we have to do it now, Professor, this is a live show, heh heh. I understand on your recent visit to Japan you studied the various techniques of Now Theatre?
PROFESSOR: No, I studied Noh Theatre in Japan.
INTERVIEWER: But my information sheet says you did.
PROFESSOR: What?
INTERVIEWER: Study Now.
PROFESSOR: No, Noh.
INTERVIEWER: Well, what did you go there for then?
PROFESSOR: To study it.
INTERVIEWER: What, the theatre?
PROFESSOR: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Now?
PROFESSOR: Noh.
(pause)
INTERVIEWER: You seem a little confused, Professor. Are you saying there is now no theatre in Japan?
PROFESSOR: (thinks) Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Then what happened to it?
PROFESSOR: Nothing happened to it, that’s where it started.
INTERVIEWER: If that’s where it started, how come there is no theatre there now?
PROFESSOR: Well, it developed over the centuries.
INTERVIEWER: So now is still flourishing?
PROFESSOR: Noh.
INTERVIEWER: It’s not still flourishing?
PROFESSOR: No, there is no such thing as Now Theatre in Japan.
INTERVIEWER: Then don’t you think it was slightly dishonest of you to sign a contract saying you would discuss it with me?
PROFESSOR: I’m perfectly willing to discuss it, I’ve spent the last three months of my life immersing myself in it!
INTERVIEWER: But you’ve just said it doesn’t exist.
PROFESSOR: It does exist, that’s what I’m saying, on my recent trip to Japan I did Noh!
INTERVIEWER: You mean you don’t know now? You’ve forgotten?
PROFESSOR: No, I do Noh now as well, I find it a very stimulating and therapeutic exercise.
(INTERVIEWER listens to instructions through an earpiece)
INTERVIEWER: Carry on. Great … Well, Professor, perhaps you could explain what form these studies of yours took?
PROFESSOR: Well, I began by taking Noh dancing lessons.
INTERVIEWER: Ah, you mean if you’d continued with your dancing lessons you would have been deemed unworthy in some way?
PROFESSOR: Of course not, dancing is central to the whole ethos, it’s a theatre of gesture and movement and mime.
INTERVIEWER: But no dancing.
PROFESSOR: Yes, Noh dancing.
INTERVIEWER: I see. (now resigned to disaster) And I understand you tried wearing now make-up?
PROFESSOR: No, I wore Noh make-up.
INTERVIEWER: You mean you normally wear make-up when you’re abroad, Professor?
PROFESSOR: Certainly not.
INTERVIEWER: Then how did wearing no make-up help you in your studies?
PROFESSOR: Well, it delineates character. For instance, red stripes denote courage, black the presence of evil, and so on.
INTERVIEWER: (openly mocking) Are you wearing make-up now, Professor?
PROFESSOR: No.
INTERVIEWER: So, looking at you tonight, Professor, we may say your lips feel brave while the gaps in your teeth are being ever so slightly naughty?
PROFESSOR: What are you talking about?
INTERVIEWER: (giving up) I don’t know, you tell me.
PROFESSOR: Noh!
INTERVIEWER: Be like that.
PROFESSOR: What?
INTERVIEWER: Well, thank you, Professor, that was very illuminating.
PROFESSOR: But I haven’t –
INTERVIEWER: Shut up. (to audience) Let’s move on now to our next item, a short film of the recent festival of Japanese Carbuncle Theatre in Tokyo.
PROFESSOR: Kabuki, you idiot!
INTERVIEWER: How dare you?
(they fight)