Gifts From Japan -- Japanese Kyogen Troupe Returns To Share Its Performance Treasures

Down in the storage room of the Burke Museum, a distinguished Japanese gentleman in a formal kimono examines a silk pouch. He unties the tassels of the brocade sack, and with great care pulls out an exquisite wooden mask.

The man holding this serene artifact is Manzo Nomura VII, the patriarch of one of Japan's foremost theatrical families. The mask he gazes at proudly is the handiwork of his father, Manzo VI, a legendary actor and carver designated as a Living National Treasure of Japan.

Thirty years ago, father and son came to the University of Washington's Center for Asian Arts as artists-in-residence. They left behind this cache of masks to UW's Burke Museum as a gesture of goodwill.

Manzo VI has since passed away. But his accomplished offspring, now 63, is in Seattle with his own sons to perform the traditional Kyogen (comedic) plays that have sustained the family for more than 250 years.

The Nomuras appear tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Bagley Wright Theatre as part of this weekend's U.S.-Japan Fair. (Call 292-ARTS for details.) Their visit is sponsored by Uwajimaya, and especially welcomed by Seattle residents who studied Kyogen with the Nomura family at UW and in Japan.

Jane Corrdry of One Reel, producer of the short run, was a pupil of the Nomuras for 12 years in Tokyo. She says members of this family, the most celebrated of 10 venerable Kyogen clans, have not performed in Seattle since 1980. However, their local fans "kept hoping for years to bring them back."

Enduring appeal

Corrdry provided English translation for Manzo VII and his 34-year-old son, Kosuke (the troupe's artistic director), during a quick visit to the Burke Museum. Though they come from very different generations, both men say that the appeal of ancient Kyogen drama endures.

"Kyogen is about 600 years old, older than classical Noh drama," remarked Manzo. "It lives on because it changes to respond to the needs of each era."

"It's really important to think of this as contemporary theater, as multifaceted," explained Kosuke, well-known for his work in modern as well as traditional Japanese drama. "The most important thing about Kyogen is that it's alive, and alive in the everyday experience of people. At the core of it is the human propensity to resist authority, and the human desire for pleasure."

Not Kabuki

Kyogen bears little resemblance to the more opulent Grand Kabuki, the Japanese performing tradition most often imported here. Kyogen is short skits with small casts, featuring archetypal comic characters, both animal and human. The humor derives from clever verbal interplay, and from physical action analogous to Western slapstick.

But the major distinction, notes Kosuke, is simplicity: "Kyogen eliminates every extraneous, superfluous element, and gets down to the basics of human nature. Kabuki will have a big, noisy group making the music, while in Kyogen you'll have one actor singing. In Kabuki, they have paper snow falling to show a snowstorm, but in Kyogen, the actor alone makes it seem like it's snowing. It demands more imagination."

Different shows

At the Bagley Wright, the Nomuras will perform two separate bills tonight and tomorrow, each comprised of three plays from their repertoire of roughly 100 works. Both programs will open with remarks from Kosuke, and be translated into English via supratitles.

Manzo, recently named an Intangible Cultural Property by the Japanese government, appears tonight as a mischievous servant in "Six Loads of Wood," and tomorrow as a rude boatman in "The Bridegroom in the Boat." Kosuke and his younger son Ryosuke will join him, along with other family members.

Actors in Kyogen clans start training at age 3 or 4, and Kosuke's 3-year-old son is already studying to play the youngest part in the repertoire, the role of a monkey. On the family's next trip to Seattle, we should be seeing three generations of performing Nomuras sharing the stage.