2008-2009 SEASONM A I N S T A G E

Mar 6, 7*, 12, 13, 14* at 8pm Mar 15 at 2pmS

umid

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*Free pre-show chat at 7:00pm at the East-West Center Gallery

About nohNoh dates back over 700 years to medieval Japan; yet this highly stylized, poetic, musical dramatic form is a vibrant, living tradition that continues to move audiences around the world today. The flute, drum calls and rhythms of the shoulder and hip drums, and voices of the characters and chorus all weave together to form a soundscape that accompanies the distilled movements of the characters and moves the audience into an altered, contemplative state. Here, as in many noh plays, the main “action” of the play is the emotional and spiritual journey of the shite (main actor). This production follows the Kita school tradition, one of the five main stylistic schools of noh.

Production StAffStage Manager: Caitlin CarberryScenic Artist and Properties Coordinator: Chesley CannonCostume Coordinator: Hannah Schauer Galli Light Board Operator: Kelsi JuFaculty Technical Director: David A. GriffithStaff Technical Director: Gerald KawaokaSet Construction Crew: Chesley Cannon, Asuka Endo, David Gerke, Angela Gosalvez, Kazumi Hatsumura, Jack MacMillan, Joseph Orton, Donald Quilinquin, Students from THEA 240 and THEA 221.Electrics Crew: Abel Coelho, Asuka Endo, Kazumi Hatsumura, Donald Quilinquin, Students from THEA 240Staff Costume Shop Manager: Hannah Schauer Galli Costumes: Hirobe Textiles, Inc. (Kyoto), Hiromi Kikuchi (Osaka), Bonkura Inc. (Kyoto) Costume Alterations: Johnna Batiste, Marie Charlson, Kat Pleviak, Corinne Powell, Amy Schrag, Priscilla Stafford Wardrobe Supervisor: Toby RinaldiPrimary Dressers: Aisha Goshi, Toby Rinaldi, Tony Young, Yvette VandermolenDressers: Valerie Carrillo, Elisa Diehl, Amy Edwards, Nathan Garrett, Matthew Peseador, Alan Shepard, Matthew ShoresFaculty Design Consultants: Joseph D. Dodd, David A. Griffith SPeciAl thAnkS Joshua Barnes, Marie Casciato, Ed Hawkins, Bob Huey, Byron Moon, Jonah Salz, Michael Schuster, Tana Marin, Arthur Thornhill, Ed Hawkins, Bill Feltz, Tim Slaughter, Japan America Society of Hawai‘i, Honolulu Magazine, Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, Consulate General of Japan in Honolulu, Outrigger Hotels and Resorts. College of Arts and Humanities

Department of Theatre and Dance in Conjunction with the Music Department

Translated and Directed by richard emmert

Training by Kita School Noh Actors

Akira Matsui, richard emmert, kinue oshima

Project Director Julie A. iezzi

Scenic and Properties Designer Joseph d. dodd

Lighting Designer Asuka endo

Shite Mask Carver hideta kitazawa

front of houSe StAffStaff Theatre Manager: Marty MyersBox Office Staff: Sarah Jane Carlton, Chris DeMoville, Elise Sanders, Stefannye Slaughter, Hannah Tuson-TurnerPublicity Director: John OgleveePublicity Assistant: Jeremy J DowdWeb Assistant: Erin SimGraphic Designer: Brett T. Botbyl Photographer: Karis LoHouse Manager: Kyle KlapatauskasAssistant House Managers: Kristina Tannenbaum, Students from THEA 200EDepartment Office Staff: Tana Marin, Lori Ann ChunDepartment Chair/Director of Theatre: W. Dennis Carroll

front of houSe inforMAtionFor translations, large print programs, Assistive Listening Devices or any other accessibility requests please contact the House Manager or call the Kennedy Theatre Box Office at 956-7655.

To arrange a Campus Security Escort from any two points on campus, please see a House Manager.

- Please silence all pagers, phones and digital watches. - No photography or video recording is permitted. - Please refrain from eating, drinking or smoking in the theatre.

Visit us on the web at http://www.hawaii.edu/kennedy

funding for the 2009-2009 noh training and Production Center for Japanese Studies Endowment grant to bring Hideta Kitazawa to UHM for a three week intensive mask carving course and public lecture-demonstrations at the East-West Center Gallery.

Friends of Kennedy Theatre grant to assist with purchase of mask carving tools and production costumes.

Chie Yamada Ethnomusicology grant for repair and purchase of musical instruments.

The University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Chancellor’s Office for funds in support of the residencies of guest artists Richard Emmert, Akira Matsui and Kinue Oshima, and production costs.

Director’s NotesSumida River (Sumidagawa) is one of the most popular noh plays in Japan. It is also one of the, if not the, saddest plays in the classical repertory of some 250 plays. A story of a boy kidnapped by slave traders from any period in any culture cannot be a happy play, particularly if the boy dies without being reunited with his mother.

While the plot gives this play an emotional power, I wondered if it is too sad for American audiences. The tragedies portrayed in American film or television seem to end with some sort of resolution. Sumida River supplies no such resolution. After her long search, the mother only finds that her young boy has died. Though she prays for him, it is difficult to see that Buddhist prayers provide her much relief.

British composer Benjamin Britten, after seeing a performance of Sumidagawa in Japan in the late 1950s, created his own operatic version of the play. His Curlew River was transposed to a make-believe river in England and employed a Christian theme. But there was one significant plot difference: the boy’s spirit appears to his mother and comforts her, saying that they will meet again in heaven. There is no such comfort for the mother in noh’s Buddhist rendering of Sumidagawa.

In addition, for American audiences there is the difficulty of presenting a classical Japanese theatre form so unlike anything we have in the West. UH has a long history of doing Asian plays, although it has been twenty years since the last noh play was done here by students. The demanding techniques of the noh style are something that professional performers in Japan take years to master and thus place high demands on students and audience alike.

It is with full knowledge of these parameters that we present this play. The difficulties presented by this highly stylistic theatrical form will, I hope, help the audience feel the emotional depth of the play. If that can happen, it will not only be a learning experience for both student performers and audience members, but a unique theatrical experience as well.

ABoUt tHe GUest DirectorRichard EMMERT, Translator and Guest Director, is Founder and Artistic Director of Theatre Nohgaku, an international company performing noh in English. A licensed Kita school noh teacher, he has composed music for seven new noh plays, has performed in traditional and new plays in and out of Japan, and has been a guest artist/faculty for noh projects in various countries in Asia, North America and Europe. He is the director of an on-going noh workshop in Tokyo and the summer intensive Noh Training Project in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, as well as a professor of Asian theatre and music at Musashino University, Tokyo.

This show will be performed without an intermission.

sceNic DesiGNer’s NotesThe scenic design reflects a slight departure from the noh theatre tradition. Although faithful to many of the practical elements of the conventional noh stage, it takes advantage of a more conceptual, play-specific approach. The first traditional element I wished to reinvent was the footprint of the stage floor, traditionally composed entirely of hard angles, straight lines and sharp edges. I felt that the shape of the floor would better serve the spirit of the story if it gave the impression of a flowing river, with the direction of the wooded planks subtly representing the current. For me, the constantly moving river not only helps to establish the primary location of the play, but also serves as an analogy for the woman’s largely futile search for her missing son.

A dual analogy for the stage treatment can be found in the suggestion of an organically-shaped boat dock amid the reeds. Since a willow tree is already mentioned in the play as a marker for the grave mound, the traditional pine tree became a “weeping” willow tree and saplings, common river bank flora that becomes an analogy for the perpetually grieving woman. As a final touch, smooth, pale gray river rock serves as a suitable substitute for the white gravel edging of the traditional stage. (Please visit the lobby display for more information on the design and to view the set model.)

ABoUt tHe GUest ArtistsAkira MATSUI is an award winning shite kata (main role performer) of the Kita School of Noh. In 1998 he was designated as an Intangible Cultural Property by the Japanese National Department of Cultural Affairs, and in 2001 received the Wakayama City Cultural Affairs Distinguished Artist Award. Working as a noh performer, choreographer, teacher, and director for the past thirty years, he has performed and conducted workshops in India, Australia, the U.K., Lithuania, the Czech Republic; and at universities throughout the U.S.

Kinue OSHIMA is a fifth-generation noh actor-teacher and the first female Kita performer admitted into the Noh Performers Association. She trained under her grandfather and father, and was a guest teacher at the Taiwan National University of Arts in 2000, and toured Europe in 2002 with a Kita School noh troupe.

Hideta KITAZAWA, is a second-generation award-winning woodcarving artist from Tokyo. His noh and kyôgen masks have been exhibited in Japan, Singapore, North Carolina and Hawai‘i. He designs both traditional and new masks, and carved the shakumi mask used for the shite in Sumida River. Some of his masks are currently on display at the East West Center Gallery.

cAst (March 5, 7, 13, 15)SHITE (mother) John Oglevee*WAKI (boatman) Jeremy J Dowd*WAKITSURE (traveler) Futoshi Terashita*KOKATA (child) Olivia I. BarnesCHORUS leader Kathleen SakaguchiCHORUS members Aya Ohara Meg Thiel Amy Edwards** Elisa Diehl* Rhiannon McCullough* Noriko KatayamaOTSUZUMI (hip drum) James Schirmer*KOTSUZUMI (shoulder drum) Mayco SantaellaNOHKAN (flute) Richard Emmert (3/5, 3/7) Frederick Lau (3/13, 3/15)MUSIC KOKEN Abel Coelho*KOKEN (stage assistant) Luke Cheng Daniel Akiyama

In partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Fine Arts degree in Asian Performance* and Acting**

cAst (March 4, 6, 12, 14)SHITE (mother) Noriko KatayamaWAKI (boatman) Meg ThielWAKITSURE (traveler) Rhiannon McCullough*KOKATA (child) Devika WassonCHORUS leader John Oglevee*CHORUS members Futoshi Terashita* Daniel Akiyama Matthew Shores Alan Shepard* Jeremy J Dowd* James Schirmer*OTSUZUMI (hip drum) Abel Coelho*KOTSUZUMI (shoulder drum) Ju Hua WeiNOHKAN (flute) Frederick LauMUSIC KOKEN Mayco SantaellaKOKEN (stage assistant) Luke Cheng Aya Ohara

In partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Fine Arts degree in Asian Performance*