Plays

The standard nō repertory performed today was established in the Edo period (1603-1868) and includes around 250 plays, although the exact number varies by nō acting school (ryūgi). Almost all these plays were created between the 14th and early 16th centuries. While a few great playwrights, such as Kan’ami, Zeami, and Zenchiku, are well known, the majority of the plays in today’s repertory have uncertain or no attribution.

Play themes include miraculous encounters with deities; the recollection of moments of intense love, strife, mistreatment, or vengeance; loyalty; family tragedies; and demon vanquishing. The highly structured texts combine passages in poetry and prose. Since the texts are rendered entirely in recitation or song, the various types of metrics are closely tied to the styles of vocalization, with seamless transitions from stylized speech to modulated chant, from free verse to strictly metered song, reflected in the overall composition of the plays.

Playwrights were performers: the plays they created emerged from their performance experience, and both text and performance traditions were passed down together through generations of performers. With the publication of nō texts in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and a growing number of amateur practitioners and patrons of nō, nō texts (yōkyoku) with their beautiful poetry and allusive imagery came to be read as literature. This section focuses on the literary aspects of nō.