Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with Some Thoughts on Muses (Especially Helga Testorf), Transgender Women, ... Geishas, Valkyries and Venus Figurines

Appendix E

Noh Play Groups, and Plays Mentioned

Noh dramas are divided into six groups, if we give “Okina” its due. Formally there are but five groups, and “Okina” is a peculiar subcategory of the first. Never mind that Zeami, the most important of Noh’s founders, specified only three categories. A full traditional program would include one play from each (usually excepting “Okina,” which is performed under special circumstances), and in the following order:

0. “Okina”

1. Waki Noh [god plays]:

Takasago

Seiobo

2. Shura Mono [ghost or warrior plays]

Atsumori

Ebira

Kanehira

Kiyotsune

3. Katsura Mono or Kazura-mono [wig plays or woman plays]

Ashikari

Eguchi

Izutsu

Matsukaze

Obasute

Sekidera Komachi

Sotoba Komachi

Yokihi

Yuki

Yuya

4. Kyojo Mono or Yonbamme-mono [madwoman plays; Tyler simply writes that this category cannot be described usefully in a few words; Keene remarks that this group paradoxically includes “realistic” plays; “Shunkan” offers crazed loneliness but no women at all appear in it]

Ataka

Dojoji

Hanjo

Kagekiyo

Kayoi Komachi

Kinuta

Miidera

Motomezuka

Nishikigi

Shunkan

Torioi-bune

Yoroboshi

5. Kichiku Mono [demon plays]

Aoi-no-Ue

Kasuga ryujin

Kokaji

Taniko

The current Noh corpus actually contains two hundred forty plays. Thus one source. Another says “only a few hundred.” Hundreds more are no longer performed. Waley claims that eight hundred plays from before 1868 survive. Mr. Jeff Clark writes me: “Actually thousands have been written…”