A Morn at the Theatre

Last Monday I put on my best morning suit and cycled to the local theatre for a Noh performance, arranged by the chaps and ladies at the International Centre. Despite having very modern facilities, the stage itself was designed in the traditional Noh style: wooden and topped with a curly Oriental roof, with one simple painted backdrop of pine trees bent in the wind. We watched two plays: The Persimmon Monk and The Groundspider (which was very appropriate, as I’d just had a battle with my first huge, hairy arachnid of the house the previous evening).

The first play was a comic piece where a naughty, famished monk decided to do a bit of thievery in the farmer’s orchard, and scaled a tree to devour some plump persimmons.
The farmer, catching him red-handed, joked, “Lo! What is that monkey doing in my tree? Or wait, is it a bird?”, causing the monk to pathetically imitate a monkey and a bird in an attempt to trick the farmer into thinking that there was no monk in the tree, merely a menagerie of strange monk-looking beasties. As is to be expected, this cunning plan failed, and instead the monk fell out of the tree (when he imitated a bird’s flight) and landed on his head, and thus the farmer abandoned him in a fit of laughter.

The Groundspider was a spooky tale of a spider spirit that entrapped a grand lord in a web of spells and tricks. The spider itself unleashed shooting paper streamers all over the stage which was very impressive, especially when the papery threads snared a few older ladies in the front row. The accompanying booklet to the performance (with manga-like illustrations) had most intriguing captions, such as, after the spider captures the lord, “…the fiend runs off”, and later, “Hitorimusha investigates the trail of blood, having decided to dispatch the beast”. Brilliant!

Regarding the performance, I could not understand any of the Japanese, it being old and delivered in a sing-song operatic voice. The costumes were magnificent, the lords and their retainers being enveloped in the stiff folds of regal kimonos and gowns, immaculately detailed and of hues noble and rich. It was very much a glimpse of ancient Japan and I felt as if an old court painting had been reanimated for my amusement. Bravo!