Chekhov’s pistol, you know? I was listening to the radio station I mentioned, Oe1, one late-night drive home, and they had this hour-long (at least) report on Japanese Noh theater. The report was nearly as slow-paced as noh theater itself, but I forced myself to listen, and eventually was engrossed.
One Austrian reporter remarked about all the people he’d seen sleeping in the audience. A Japanese university professor noh expert was asked about it and he said — you know how they play a bit of the original response, and then its volume is turned down but it continues under the translation? The professor said, among other things, “Noh de, yoku nemasu nee.” Which they translated as something along the lines of “it’s common for people to sleep at noh performances” but which means, to me at least, “noh is great for sleeping.”
They discussed the inherent boringness of noh — how it has been slowing down and growing more stylized since it was invented centuries ago, to the point where a performance that would have taken 45 minutes then takes 90 minutes now. And the zen nature of noh was mentioned. And how the slow, boring, stylized minimalism forces viewers to actively (emotionally) participate and empathize rather than be entertained. And this, which is my whole point: now it is not about external events or impressions, or anything else surface and temporary, but rather about the internal emotional world in each of us, the constellation that never ages, that persists from childhood to old age.
I like that idea. Because I’m still that lonesome 3-year old kid playing checkers with my uncle, unaware that he’s lonesome.
“because i’m still that lonesome 3-year old kid playing checkers with my uncle, unaware that he’s lonesome.”
golly, i liked that.
let us discuss instead the japanese and their whole “sleep deprivation is the only way to prove i’m working hard” thing. his whole sentence was probably “noh is great for sleeping in comparison to the subway car i took a standing nap in on the way to the interview”. maybe it’s more of a “sleeping only counts if you multitask it” because see, then going to noh, you’re supporting the arts AND sleeping. and definitely not missing anything.
or actually probably your point is more interesting.
No, his point was “Noh is great for sleeping.” I’m not sure which preposition he used, “Noh de” or “Noh ni…”. I liked the honest matter-of-factness, no intellectual pretense. That was inserted by the translator. Very simply the Japanese experts seemed to all agree, noh is boring and a good place to sleep. But they still loved it. I’ve never seen noh, but I fell asleep at a kabuki performance once, and kabuki was supposedly, among other things, a reaction to noh being so boring so I can only imagine.
You write beautifully.
Um, er, or rather something somewhat more grammatically correct about the quality of your writing, but it is quite late and I hit “post” before my brain caught up with my first reaction.