RELATED TOPIC:
MEDIEVAL JAPAN

Donald Keene :: The Noh plays are written in very difficult Japanese. Nevertheless, I think that the Noh has never been more popular than it is today.

If you try to get a ticket at the national Noh theater — a most beautiful building — it's very difficult to get one except if you try well in advance. And sometimes, the very first day they're all gone. And it's not only old scholars of Japanese who go, but young people too. And some of the young people may at their universities be engaged in studying the text, singing the text, or playing the musical instruments associated with them.

The Noh, I think, contrary to what most people would have prophesied fifty years ago, is now enjoying a period of great popularity, a real renaissance of the Noh.