Zeami

Zeami (1363-1443), Japan's most celebrated actor and playwright, composed more than thirty of no drama's finest plays. He also wrote a variety of texts on theater and performance that have, until now, been largely unavailable in English. Zeami: Performance Notes presents the full range of the artist's critical thought on the subject, focusing on the aesthetic values of no and its antecedents, as well as the techniques of playwriting, the place of allusion, the training of actors, the importance of patronage, and the relationship between performance and broader intellectual and critical concerns. Spanning more than four decades, these texts reflect the essence of Zeami's instruction under his famous father, the actor Kannami, and the value of his long and challenging career in medieval Japanese theater. Tom Hare begins with a comprehensive introduction discussing Zeami's critical importance in Japanese culture. He then incorporates essays on the performance of no in medieval Japan and the remarkable story of the transmission and reproduction of Zeami's manuscripts over the past six centuries. His eloquent translation is fully annotated and includes Zeami's diverse and exquisite anthology of dramatic songs, Five Sorts of Singing, presented both in English and the original Japanese.