Kyogen : Japanese Theatre's Timeless Comedy

The first book to provide a comprehensive introduction to the formulaic characters, plots, and staging of the comic form of Japanese drama, kyogen.

It spans its history up to the present day, traces its evolution and its spread in the 20th century and situates it within a comparative comedy context. A 600-year-old classical comic form, kyogen plays feature spirited physical gags, rapid-fire banter, poetry, song, and dance. Plots vary from situational comedy and slapstick farce to fantasy. Kyogen actors also appear in noh, the lyric dance-theatre, as go-betweens and narrators.

The books explores how kyogen was originally an independent art, and how since becoming paired with noh as samurai “ceremonial entertainment” in the 17th century, its satire became gentle, the movements stylized, the properties and costumes elegant. It goes on to illuminate how, after World War II, kyogen enjoyed a renaissance. Scholars pointed out its native anti-authoritarianism, comparing them to Aristophanic comedies, Shakespeare’s clowns, and commedia dell’arte. Kyogen actors taught at Japanese theatre academies and professional troupes, occasionally asked to interpret Shakespeare, Beckett, and contemporary plays showing the threats of nuclear war and climate change.

This book shines a spotlight on kyogen as performance, describing popular characters and plots, the training trajectory from childhood to maturity, and the organizational structure of this guild-like comic cottage industry. A comparative approach situates kyogen’s classical comedies within a global dramatic comedy context.