SOURCE: Ishii, Tatsuro. “Zeami's Mature Thoughts on Acting.” Theatre Research International 12, no. 2 (summer 1987): 110-23.

[In the following essay, Ishii traces the evolution of Zeami's theories on the ideal Nō performance, noting that he believed performance should try to achieve “accord with the perfect order of nature by means of lifelong training and development.”]

It is difficult to deal with all the ideas and concepts of a man whose writings span a period of some forty years and which are contained within some twenty-one essays. But the time spent on even a cursory exploration into some of the most important ideas presented in Zeami's later essays is most rewarding to anyone interested in theatre, for they are unique in pointing to the nucleus of his concepts on acting and performance based on his own experience and deep insights as a thinker, actor, director and playwright.

Of all the essays Zeami (1363-1443) has written, his earliest and best known work is that of the Kadensho. Several of the later essays, however, are just as important and even more significant in their profundity and originality. Here I shall deal with some important concepts on acting and actor training put forth in the essays written after Kadensho, from the standpoint of their relationships with corresponding ideas in Kadensho.

Zeami presents us with poignant and suggestive ideas throughout his essays on the art of nō. Many of these ideas point out the essence of the performing arts in a more general sense as well as those of the traditional nō. Two terms, hana and yūgen, above all, are familiar to readers of Zeami and are supposed to be the ideals of theatrical presentation in nō (those concepts are the equivalents of catharsis in Aristotle's Poetics and rasa in Bharata's Nātya-Śṭastra).

As the title Kadensho (Book of Transmission of the Flower) denotes, its central concept is that of hana (flower), and several sections of this book are devoted to conveying the way in which to achieve hana on stage. Hana is primarily concerned with the beauty or novelty of a performance into which the audience's attention is drawn despite itself.

Zeami says in another part of the same book that shiore (the drooping or withering of a flower) is on a higher level than hana, though to study hana is of the utmost importance. We are tempted to wonder what kind of performance Zeami had in mind when he used a ‘flower which is withering or dying’ as a metaphor of a superior performance. The withering of a flower naturally comes after the blooming; the level of shiore, in a similar way, will only be attained after a performer has mastered every aspect of hana. The withering of flowering plants is of no interest. Withering is interesting precisely because it follows blooming. Shiore, therefore, is not attainable until a performer knows what a true hana is and is able to express it at will on stage.

Zeami does not give a clear definition as to the meaning of shiore, but it is obvious that he means a rather profound aspect of performance which would be characterised by internal, almost subliminal communication between performer and audience. Shiore refers to a more delicate, deeper performance, usually of a maturer performer in his later years, whereas hana seems to emphasize external visual stage effects to a greater degree, resulting in spectator involvement than would have been the case with shiore.

The idea of shiore reminds us of two more generally used aesthetic concepts in Japan, aware (sorrow) and sabi (desolation or loneliness). Shiore seems to bear resemblance to aware and sabi in the sense that the negative connotation of each word can acquire positive aesthetic meaning. Just as shiore denotes a profoundly quiet performance that will be attained only after maturity, aware, in the proper sense of the word, denotes a certain kind of aesthetic pleasure in the recognition of pain or sorrow in life. Sabi, which may be profoundly felt in the enactment of the Tea Ceremony, is also seen as an aesthetic pleasure in something that is old, desolute and lonely.

The idea of shiore in Kadensho seems also to have affinity with some of Zeami's essential theories on the performance of nō in his later essays, particularly with yūgen. Yūgen is not Zeami's own creation, but it had been used as an important concept within a broader sphere of Japanese medieval poetics. In Kadensho, Zeami tells us that the performance of a seven-year-old child will gain yūgen since his youthfulness is attractive in and of itself. Yūgen, at this period of Zeami's career, means simply the idea of beauty and elegance on stage and appears to be used almost as a synonym of hana in certain aspects.

In Kakyō (The Mirror of the Flower), which is among the most important works of Zeami, much greater weight is attached to yūgen than in Kadensho, and a large section of the book is concerned with an analysis of yūgen. In this essay yūgen is distinctively the primary concern of nō, and is the ultimate stage of attainment in all areas of the arts, whereas yūgen during the period in which Kadensho was written, was given only the meaning of beauty and elegance within a particular performance with little more explanation than that.

Yūgen in Kakyō, as well as in Kadensho, still refers to the beauty and elegance of the total performance (i.e., the combined elements of dance, music and monomane, or imitation). However, it should be emphasized, one must not apply this concept simply to the style of a performance; but one must also take into account the state of mind of the performer. This added psychological dimension brings into being other connotations of the word yūgen, such as ‘profound’, ‘mystical’, or ‘intense’.

Hana, which was the central concept of nō in Kadensho, is replaced by yūgen in Kakyō. For simple and clear examples of this change, we need only to direct our attention to the following statements: ‘To know hana in nō is the ultimate object; it is a prerequisite’ (Chapter III, ‘Questions and Answers’, Kadensho); ‘Yūgen is considered to be the supreme stage of attainment in all sorts of arts. Particularly in the art of nō, the style of yūgen is of the primary importance’ (On Entering into the Realm of yūgen, Kakyō).

This suggests that Zeami had begun to look for the deeper beauty of a performance in the mind and soul of the performer who is able to transcend the mere techniques of constant training. It also shows that his concern has changed from emphasis on dramatic realistic performance that he inherited from his father, Kan-ami, to the world of unrealistic, fantastic nō. Accordingly, the importance of monomane in the training of the younger period decreases, with the accent now on dance and music.

Monomane (imitation) in Kadensho is given considerable detailed description which classifies character types into nine distinct roles, such as ‘Woman’, ‘Old Man’, ‘Unmasked Face’, ‘Frantic Person’, ‘Priest’, ‘Dead Warriors’, ‘Deity’, ‘Demons’ and ‘A Chinese’. A number of the ideas in this section appear to have been adopted from Kan-ami's teachings and are used with some of Zeami's own original ideas, which came directly from his personal experiences.

However, Zeami's ideas on the method of training actors in their earlier years show fundamental change in his later work, Shikadō (The Way to the Flower). He proposes convincingly in this book that the training of children aged ten to seventeen or eighteen be restricted to dance and music without going into characterizations of roles; after their childhood as trainees is over, they may begin to learn only three different character types, these being ‘Old Man’, ‘Woman’, and ‘Warrior’, based on the dance and music they have learned thus far. Zeami is positive that there is no other way to go about training the nō performer. He affirms that ‘dance and music’ and the three above-mentioned character types are absolutes in the training of nō actors and are adaptable to every role and technique in performance.

The nine character types classified in Kadensho are later condensed into three basic types, and the significance of dance and music in the early stage of the training is definitely accentuated in inverse proportion to the emphasis placed on monomane. Accordingly, monomane in nō is neither ‘imitation’ nor ‘realism’ in the western sense of the word, but a totally stylized, symbolic representation of the essence and substance of the human experience realized through the use of dance and music (with extremely simplified, abstract movements).

Zeami points out that the strict regimen of dance and music in the earlier phases of a performer's training makes it easier for him to gain yūgen when acting a role in his later career. A number of performers nonetheless are criticized for focusing simply on the training of superficial realism, which he sharply warns against, since it will render the performance unstable and vacillating.

Although Zeami's suggestions on the art of monomane in the last section of Shikadō do not enter into as many details as Kadensho, they illuminate the essence of imitation in acting. Here the ideas of tai and yū are now presented with their relationship to each other and likened to that of a flower and its fragrance or the moon and its shadow. According to Zeami, one who is thoroughly familiar with nō sees it through his mind's eyes; consequently, an effort of the mind is demanded not only from the performers but equally from the audience.

What is seen by the mind is tai, while what is seen by the eyes is yū. Novice performers imitate yū since their imitative capabilities are ‘through the eyes’, so to speak. However, the mature performer realizes that yū is inextricably bound to tai and that they are not separate, independent entities. Indeed, there is no reason to imitate yū. Yū cannot be imitated.

Zeami does not explicitly define tai and yū, but tai can be interpreted as a fundamental texture in acting dependent on the mind of a performer, and yū is its outer, visual manifestation. Yū, therefore, grows naturally out of tai in an artistic context. Copy tai, and it will become yū. If one copies yū, it will become a false tai or yū, which leads to utter failure for a performer.

Tai and yū are originally Buddhist terms meaning the essence and its function. Zeami adapted these ideas to acting and performance. These concepts are comparable to the Inner Character and Outer Character in Method acting: ‘In life outer manifestations are the result of feelings and the inner spirit of a person and it is this inner life which serves as a stimulus to forming the Outer Character.’¹Tai, however, is not merely the inner spirit of the role but also the total understanding of the art of nō and the proper acquisition of the basic style and form of that art through the constant use of discipline and training. Yū, which may contain certain elements unique to the performer, visually comes out of tai.

The idea of tai and yū reminds us of another clear-cut axiom concerning acting given in Kakyō: ‘Move your mind a hundred percent and your body seventy percent.’ The body must move less than the mind's desires. Zeami goes on to say that the mind which has moved more than the body will become yū and a body which has moved less than the mind will become tai, so it will make a deep impression on the audience's mind. Tai, which was concerned with the mind, and yū, which was originally the bodily function (i.e., the visual function of tai), are used here in the opposite way.

The paradox of the nō is that it presents extremely restrained emotions expressed in stylized simplified movements and yet brings about a boundless enlargement of artistically refined emotional energy which is then transmitted to the audience; for this a performer has to have great capacity for condensing and focusing emotion.

We can see clear parallels with tai and yū in Stanislavsky's study of the psycho-physical laws of acting. When we think over his exploration into the psychic technique and bodily function in acting, the resemblance to Zeami is striking particularly in terms of their search for inner creativity. Zeami's idea that the body should move less than the mind is nothing but the expression of his desire for inner communication. It is more than a mere coincidence when Stanislavsky writes that ‘small physical actions, small physical truths and the moments of belief in them acquire a great significance on stage particularly in the climaxes of a tragedy’.² However, unlike the lifelike realism of Stanislavsky, Zeami's thought is primarily concerned with the purely artistic theatricality of a performance.

‘Man's life has a limit, but the training for nō has no limit.’ These were Zeami's words as he succinctly expressed the lifelong training required of the nō performer, who must be prepared to devote every minute of his life from his earliest years to a literally endless discipline. If that is the case, how can he maintain a mental focus through all of his life and constantly evolve through his training? More importantly, what is the nature of this mentality? Zeami responds to these questions with a very simple but meaningful sentence, ‘Keep shoshin in mind’. This has become a well-known aphorism among the Japanese people in general as well as nō performers.

Shoshin is the ‘beginner's mind’ or ‘primary intention’ at the point when the novice has made up his mind to initiate a specific course of action, but it also refers to immature technique and spirit in the initiatory stage of training. To keep this notion of shoshin constantly in mind is by all means essential and is the basis of every category of technique and style in the nō theatre. Although we see some references to shoshin in Kadensho, it is given its most analytical interpretation in Kakyō.

Zeami set forth three principles pertaining to shoshin in Kakyō. They are:

1. Keep in mind shoshin in the novice period.
2. Keep in mind shoshin in each period of the discipline.
3. Keep in mind shoshin in the elderly years.

Keeping shoshin in mind leads the novice to evaluate the present state of his performance properly. If he does not maintain this quality of shoshin—that is, the immature yet fresh and alive aspects of initial experiences and encounters associated with training for the theatre—he will not correctly learn from his past mistakes and will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to progress, and in effect will continually return to the state of the beginner's mind.

Zeami's second principle deals with the different stages in an actor's life and the aspects of shoshin (including the new techniques, artifacts and expressions a performer is introduced to at the start of each period) which are peculiar to each stage. He points out, as he did in Kadensho, that for an actor to make his performance as richly varied and diversified as possible he must recall the unique aspects of shoshin which are peculiar not only to the current stage of his training but also to all previous stages. To forget past shoshin will result in a narrowed technique, a technique only of the present, and will reduce the depth of an actor's performance.

Zeami's third principle quite naturally deals with the difficulties and problems associated with acquiring a performing technique that will lend itself to use by the elder performer, who must try to be aware of that extremely salient quality of shoshin—the immaturity and freshness of the beginner's mind. A performer in the later years of his life must be cognisant of this aspect into his style. However, the concept of shoshin in the elderly years is made somewhat more complex by its almost paradoxical essence, the acquisition of the ability of how to do nothing on stage.

A performer is expected to develop constantly and deepen his art; he should always progress. It can be seen that shoshin is a criterion by which he can help measure that progress and the present state of his performance. At the same time shoshin is a guard against a performer's becoming self-complacent about his acting.

The notion of shoshin is comparatively unique in Zeami's essays, in the sense that it deals with the general daily mental attitude of a performer without regard to the audience. More common to his essays is the idea that the standpoint of the audience by and large is taken considerably into account when he considers the philosophy of nō. It must have been critical to Zeami that each performance be successful within the economic and social contexts in which the art of nō existed.

Since the social status of performers in his age was generally very low, they had no other way of preserving their art and life than by gaining the constant support or patronage of the powerful warriors and nobles who were part of the audience. It is a characteristic tendency of the Japanese theatre—and many other Asian theatre forms as well—that the spectator is a central component of the theatre. Unlike modern western theatre, in which the spectators are conditioned to be shown the presentation and to react to it individually, there are a number of traditional forms in Asia in which the theatre is a kind of ritualistic space where both the performers and the spectators share the theatrical event equally and grow into each other mutually. Nō is not exceptional in this performer-spectator relationship, yet it is not really analogous to other Asian theatrical forms in that there seems to exist a particularly intense relationship between performers and spectators.

Zeami's idea of riken no ken in Kakyō, which is among the best known of his ideas in his later works, seems to have evolved from the question of how to make good use of this tension in the performer's consciousness in order to make the articulation of his physical presence on stage come closer to the ideals of aesthetic beauty and elegance. Riken no ken can literally be translated as ‘the sight of remote sight’, that is the sense by which a performer adopts the same perspective as the audience. On the other hand, gaken no ken can be interpreted literally as ‘the sight of self-sight’, that is the sense by which a performer sees himself from his own viewpoint.

Zeami suggests that a performer should have riken no ken as well as gaken no ken. i.e., he should be able to see himself on stage as the audience sees him (‘the sight of remote sight’) in addition to maintaining his own viewpoint. Thus the objective and subjective points of view are incorporated in the concepts of riken no ken and gaken no ken. It is important to emphasize that when a performer is able to see himself with the audience's eyes, so to speak, he has not only the same visual image as they do, but also the audience's mind and awareness. If a performer is able to see all aspects of his body from every perspective—as the audience sees it—by means of riken no ken, he will realize an aesthetic ideal on stage which in its balance and harmony approaches perfection.

The concept of riken no ken points out the dangers of being caught in the web of one's own ideas to the extent that the performer finds himself deprived of the ability to view his actions objectively. To have riken no ken in mind rids the performer of this distorted subjective judgement and transforms the mind of ego into that of nothingness, leading both the actor and audience to share the same image. Like the concepts tai and yū, riken no ken exhibits a Buddhist influence.

In Kadensho Zeami writes that the secret of hana must be hidden to the public to remain authentic. Hana, therefore, is meant to make a deep impression on the mind of the audience unexpectedly, before it can perceive it. In order to realize this hidden hana a performer must first be free of self-conscious efforts and attempts at attaining hana. Both riken no ken and the hidden hana appear to share the same notion that a performer has to clear his mind as much as possible of the consciousness of ego, and attempt to achieve the almost spiritual state of void or nothingness, thus approaching a more objectified communication.

We are inclined to take it for granted that the conventional role of actors is ‘to show’ and the role of the audience is ‘to see’. When both actors and audiences become complacent with these roles of ‘showing’ and ‘seeing’, the theatre loses its unique power as a live medium for performance which can capture unrepeatable and idiosyncratic events during each presentation. For Zeami, however, the theatre seems to be the living space where a delicately tense balance of ‘showing’ and ‘seeing’, whether visual or psychological, between actors and the audience dominates over this once-and-for-all aesthetics. Furthermore, in order to keep this delicately tense balance which is dependent upon time, place and audience, Zeami demands that the actor have an objective image of himself, an image which reflects the audience's point of view.

The idea of riken no ken is similar to the Brechtian ‘Alienation Effect’ in that both diminish or eliminate the tendency of an actor to empathize with the character he portrays, thereby reducing self-indulgence in the process of acting. However, the Brechtian idea of ‘non-empathy’ is more of a cognitive function, whereas Zeami's riken no ken is an aesthetic function.

In Yūgaku-Shūdō-Fūken (Essays on Noh Training) which is thought to have been written after Kakyō, and which is characterized by an extremely philosophical point of view, Zeami sheds light on the mind of the performer from a different perspective. Adopting some basic ideas of Zen Buddhism he refers to the concepts of u (‘being’ or ‘existence’) and mu (‘non-being’ or ‘nothingness’), and applies these to the metaphysics of acting.

For Zeami, u in performance restricts the effect of action on stage to the realm of the eye, much as the u of Buddhism ties one to the realm of causation and material existence. On the other hand, mu in Buddhism is pure consciousness beyond experience or knowledge without even a hint of the self. When a mature accomplished performer attains this state of mu, he is freely able to produce various stage effects. This state of mu lies at the core of every visual natural phenomenon, and it is this state that bears and produces all reality. If a performer's mind is in tune with this seedbed of reality, he will grasp the deepest secrets of the performing arts, finally gaining myōka (‘the flower of mystery’) which is the highest level of performance, the artistic quality of which can be compared to the almost absolute perfection of nature. In one of Zeami's later works, Kyūi (The Nine Ranks), in which he illustrates the nine different artistic levels of a performance, myōka is seen as being beyond the description of words and above the grasp of consciousness.

This state of mu in the mind leading to the emanation of myōka on stage cannot be described literally by members of the audience. Just as Buddhism attaches much importance to the disciplining of the mind over a period of time, mu can be gained only after a number of years of sincere devotion to the training of both body and mind. Jerzy Grotowski once said that an actor should involve himself in an act of extreme yet disciplined sincerity and authenticity. Zeami's ideas on an actor's training seem somewhat similar to those of Grotowski in that both demand a complete, sincere dedication to transformation based on discipline.

Although the notion of mu in performance may sound somewhat hard to understand, it has played a vital role in various aspects of Japanese art and life since Zen Buddhism began to permeate the culture in the early thirteenth century. Many areas such as the Tea Ceremony, painting, gardening, architecture, poetry, drama and the mentality of the samurai point out this marked influence.

The Tea Ceremony is deeply steeped in the philosophy of mu: ‘while the Emptiness may sound too abstract for the teaman sipping the green-coloured beverage from a handmade bowl, the Emptiness is in truth no less than the concreteness of reality itself’.³

Zen Buddhism also came to be closely related to and had an influence on the swordsmanship of the samurai (i.e., bushi-dō, or the way of the samurai) imprinting itself strongly on their psyche and morals. The samurai discipline points out the value of munen (‘no consciousness’) and musin (‘no mind’); both are Zen terms approaching in spirit as well as in essence the Zen concept of mu.

Likewise the notion of mu became so influential it exerted a controlling force on the mind of Zen artists resulting in the understatement of the role of ego. The ideal outcome of such a tendency would be to have each stroke of the painter's brush, now devoid of ego, serve the single purpose of the whole.

Zeami also tells us in the same book that a performer should have an internal tension penetrating every part of his body in order to have various flowerings of inner qualities in each performance. We can see that nothingness (mu) and tension are not contradictory concepts in Zeami's mind. The state of mind which is void yet tense will presumably lead to a condition that is beyond consciousness, but where consciousness is not lost entirely, i.e., the performance which is less distorted by personal motives and more objectively beautiful. So it can be seen that Zeami considers that transcendence of ego brings about richness of objectified emotion in the extremely refined and stylized medium of the nō theatre.

This matter of nothingness and internal tension is more explicitly delineated from a different perspective in Kakyō, where senu-hima, which is another considerably important idea in the later essays, is presented. Senu-hima is a moment—either brief or prolonged—of cessation when dance, music and acting of the spoken word stop completely. In other words, it is a momentary empty break on stage between one movement, musical phrase, or spoken word, and the next.

Both the ideas of senu-hima and ‘shoshin in the elderly years’ bring to mind the basic problem facing the performer who must try to retain the continuity of his performance under conditions of minimal physical activity. Zeami relates that in the process of senu-hima a performer has to be intently alert and must keep the internal tension in his mind sharpened. This internal tension, then, becomes visible to the audience almost like an aura surrounding the performer's body to the extent that being immobile on stage can have the consequence of emitting interesting effects. However, Zeami once again asserts that the performer should never show outwardly his efforts and attempts at keeping this inner tension. Once they are shown, they become nothing but superficial external display of technique.

Zeami goes on to say that various techniques of monomane (imitation) have the danger of becoming somewhat artificial, lacking the mind of the performer to sustain them and give them life, much like the puppet without the puppeteer. A puppeteer must attempt to make the audience oblivious to the strings of his puppet; in a similar way, a performer must attempt to conceal the inner tension in his mind; for him to show this inner tension to the audience is analogous to a puppeteer making the audience conscious of the puppet's strings.

To avoid possible confusion at this point, Zeami's idea can be put this way: a performer must maintain a certain inner tension in his mind even at momentary points of inaction on stage (senu-hima); this internal spiritual tension of the performer transmits a certain dramatic effect to the audience; the performer, however, should not be over conscious at these attempts at inner tension and make the audience aware of his efforts. This further points out Zeami's interest in the Buddhist concept of the void or nothingness, since Buddhist ideas of self-effacement and negation of ego lend themselves quite readily to the inner state of non-self-conscious tension required by Zeami for the optimal realization of a theatrical performance.

As an attempt to enable an actor to become more proficient in dealing with self-consciousness and tension in his mind, relaxation exercises are normally done by actors in the modern western theatre. Zeami makes similar demands on the performer, but this freedom from self-consciousness is supposed to create new tension in the mind; moreover, this tension must take place in the non-conceptual framework of ‘the void’, which we are told is the perfect embodiment of spiritual fulfilment beyond the ego which leads to flexible intuitive creativity.

Zeami's idea of tension in the mind of a performer appears to be almost synonymous with ‘concentration’. Concentration is an essential part of Buddhist discipline needed to acquire an insight into reality which leads to intuitive wisdom. It is the source of quiet energy and vitality in Buddhism, and that of intuitive creativity in art. ‘Tension’ in Zeami's sense of the word also seems to suggest an unseen tight string (or tautness) between the performer and audience; the performer having to keep the string incessantly tight.

Of all the major theorists of theatre both eastern and western, Zeami perhaps may be the only one that continuously considered how a performer can conquer the inevitable arrival of old age. Man gets old, and as he gets old, the wane and decline of his technique and physicality as means of artistic expression are inevitable. Zeami talked about the performance of actors over fifty years old in Kadensho in the following way: ‘there is no other adequate and pertinent way than to move as little as possible on stage after this period’. He also added that a mature actor can retain hana even in his old age after all other techniques have faded.

Faced by the wane and decline of the physical, Zeami substitutes the mind. Senu-hima is but one of the ideas presented by Zeami to help performers in their elderly years devise and discover more positive and valuable techniques beyond the physical.

Finally I shall consider the concept of jo-ha-kyū, developed in Shūgyoku-Tokuka, written by Zeami at the age of sixty-five. (Shūgyoku-Tokuka rendered literally into English becomes the somewhat enigmatic phrase, ‘to find a jewel and to gain a flower’).

In nō achievements and accomplishments come about through the developmental process called jo-ha-kyū, which is divided into three parts: the first part, jo, signifies the introduction, which is slow and which draws the audience smoothly into the atmosphere of the work; ha is the development or breaking apart, which is lively and is the longest of the three parts; kyū is the denouement or climax, which rushes very rapidly to the end.

Jo-ha-kyū has been applied to bugaku (ancient Japanese court dance) and shōmyō (Buddhist chanting) as well as to the early form of nō. Later it permeated a number of fields of Japanese music such as nagauta, one of the main forms of music in the kabuki theatre and some styles of koto playing.

But Zeami alone is responsible for the elaborate theoretical refinement and codification of this concept; he adapted jo-ha-kyū, which originally controlled the tempo and mood within a piece of dance music, to every segment encompassed by the structure of nō. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole universe of nō consists of jo-ha-kyū.

This principle, first of all, is employed in the sequential ordering of plays performed on a single day and also within the structure of each specific play. The traditional method of arranging and ordering the performance of nō plays on a single day was established in the Edo Period, when nō was patronized by the Shogunate. Under this system five classifications of plays were established showing the influence of jo-ha-kyū.

The ha section itself contains jo-ha-kyū in the sense that each one of these three plays emphasizes one aspect of jo-ha-kyū while remaining subject to the larger scheme. Likewise a single play can be divided into five segments, the first part being jo, the second to fourth parts ha, and the fifth part, kyū. (This division is also used at a later time within the structure of a single play of the traditional Japanese puppet theatre, bunraku.) On a smaller scale, it is possible to notice the influence of jo-ha-kyū even within the twelve syllables of verse in nō music.

However, Zeami further develops this principle in Shūgyoku-Tokuka, where he appears to give almost metaphysical meaning to it, adding profound depths to its potential utilization.

The proper development of jo-ha-kyū leads to a sense of fulfilment in a performance much in the same way as any natural process which comes to a logical conclusion transmits to the spectator a feeling of completion and fulfilment. Zeami points out that a performance which does not develop beyond the point of jo or ha, i.e., which does not reach the level of kyū, does not engender in the audience a feeling of fulfilment, precisely because the audience has within itself its own sense of jo-ha-kyū and, whether explicitly or implicitly, it measures the value of the performance against this sense.

Zeami also related jo-ha-kyū to the performer himself by stressing that for the performer to gain the correct sense of jo-ha-kyū he should go beyond the bounds of ego and self-consciousness and act without these restraints.

Though the principle of jo-ha-kyū was earlier applied primarily to the sequence of pieces to be performed in a single day or to the composition and structure of a single play, in Shūgyoku-Tokuka Zeami enlarges its meaning to include even the resonant sound of a single footstep or a single voice in song within a particular performance. Indeed, he recognizes the principle of jo-ha-kyū in every phenomenon of nature ranging from the macrocosm of the entire universe to the microcosm of the chirping of birds and insects.

We may feel now that we can capture a glimpse of Zeami's ultimate ideal of performance. It appears that Zeami wants a performance which is always accompanied by human intention and consciousness which nevertheless goes beyond the boundaries of human intention and consciousness and comes closer to accord with the perfect order of nature by means of lifelong training and discipline. Nature functions within the harmony of its own order. Even predictability and unpredictability are within the sphere of nature's order. Does not Zeami wish that a performer come closer to this realm of the perfect order of nature, eventually becoming part of it, in order to realize forms of art of the highest levels of perfection beyond all discipline and technique? It should become almost a religious experience in the aesthetics of performance for both the performers and audiences. Is not this what Beethoven called for when he wrote above the Kyrie of his great work, the Missa Solemnis, ‘From the heart—may it find its way to the heart again’?

Notes

1. E. D. Easty, On Method Acting (Florida, House of Collectibles, 1978), 152.

2. D. Magarshack, Stanislavsky on the Art of the Stage (New York, Hill and Wing, 1961), p. 49.

3. D. T. Susuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (New York, Bollingen Foundation, 1965), p. 300.