Five Modem Noh Plays brilliantly revives a great art form that
has long fasci-nated audiences and readers throughout the world. In
his introduction, Donald Keene calls these the first genuinely
successful modern Noh plays and adds, "If the medium is given a new
lease on life it will be because of Mishima and his work."
As long ago as 1916 William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound were
excitedly dis- covering Noh plays. In 1922 Arthur Waley's fine
translations appeared in a col- lection titled The Noh Plays of
japan. Since then, interest has grown steadily in this unique art
form.
At the heart of Noh lies the accidental encounter through which
the workings of Fate are revealed. Often one of the persons is not
what he or she seems to be: perhaps a ghost or a person fallen from
high estate. Mishima has been mar- velously successful in
preserving the weird and haunting mood of classical Noh, but his
characters and situations have the directness and hardness of an
encounter on a city street.
The emotion of these plays is so communicable that one can
imagine them staged anywhere in the world. Or they can be read and
reread in Donald Keene's excellent translation.
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