Japanese Noh Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Japanese Noh - Essay Example Japanese Noh is a significant class of classical Japanese theater, it is a drama combined with musical effects used to depict certain social issues and ethical considerations. The concept holds its roots deep in Japanese culture since 14th century. In these dramas, the characters use masks of different types to emphasize on the characters of theme of drama. Moreover, men act and play their parts as male and female both. The repertory usually limits to a particular number of plays, mostly historical in nature. The duration of the drama is usually long enough to play all day long. During the intervals, for the sake of inducing freshness and maintaining the life in drama, Japanese Noh utilizes a number of short and humorous skits as a break from the original theme. A very significant characteristic of Japanese Noh is the nature of the topics selected as the theme for drama. The choice of the topic is more towards history and the selected topics are more or less of the same kind, pertaining to classical Japanese traditions. The themes of Japanese Noh emphasizes more on the same old cultural, traditional, and historical aspects rather than utilization of some new, fresh, and innovative approaches for the drama. However, some groups have showed development in this regard. They have done plays and dramas on new topics that were never a part of Japanese Noh before. Moreover, as an innovative break from the past, these groups have revived certain historical events as well. Fans of cultural diversity has intermixed Japanese Noh with other traditional and cultural plays as well.