KANZE KOJIRÔ NOBUMITSU

(1453–1516)

An important composer of Nō drama, Kanze Kojirô Nobumitsu was one of the last artists to produce a significant number of Nō plays. He was the grandnephew of ZEAMI, the most renowned composer of Nō drama.Nobumitsu was a writer, actor, and musician, and was leader of the Kanze school of Nō theater, the school with which Zeami had been associated. As such, he participated in the elite cultural circles of the late MUROMACHI PERIOD. Nobumitsu began his career as a drummer (part of thehayashi, or instrumental chorus of musicians that played at Nō performances). He began composing relatively early, though, and rose to a leadership role in the theater that began to send Nō drama in a new direction, one that tends to make the plays more “realistic” and “dramatic” from a Western point of view.It has been suggested that the influence of shogun military leaders during the Edo period squelched this new direction in the drama in favor of the more conservative values of the older theater, and that those strictures have affected criticisms of Nō theater to the present day, making Nobumitsu’s contributions undervalued, since they do not conform to the earlier aesthetic ideal. Some of Nobumitsu’s better-known plays areFunabenkei(Benkei on board),Momijigari(Autumn excursion), andTaisei Taishi(Prince Taisei). But Nobumitsu’s most famous play, an unusual example of Nō theater that seems especially “dramatic” by western standards, isDOJOJI.

■ Keene, Donald, ed.Twenty Plays of the No Theatre. Assisted by Royall Tyler. Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies, 85. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.

■ Komparu, Kunio.The Noh Theater: Principles and Perspectives. New York: Weatherhill/Tankosha, 1983.