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MEDIEVAL JAPAN

 
NOH DRAMA
A Brief History and Introduction

Donald Keene :: The Noh drama began quite early. We don't know just when it began, but probably as early as the eleventh century. However, most of the repertory, the plays that are performed today, are works that were written in the fifteenth or early sixteenth century.

These plays are short — to read them would only take a few minutes — but in performance, a play that you can read in ten minutes may take an hour. The performance is slow, deliberate, but more than that, it's intended to represent more than you actually see with your eyes.