The Noh Theatre - Noh Costumes and Masks

History of Japanese Theatre
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The Noh Theatre
The staging of a No play A square platform supported on pillars, open to the audience on three sides, and covered with a temple-like roof, forms the stage for a No play. It is connected with a green room by a corridor, or gallery, which leads back from the stage at the left, as the audience sees it. Here part of the action takes place. Upon the back scene is painted a pine tree, and three small pines are placed along the corridor.

The Popular Theater And The Marionette Theater

History of Japanese Theatre
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The popular theater
Tradition assigns the beginning of the popular theater in Japan to the early part of the seventeenth century, when the priestess Okuni ran away from her Shinto temple and built a theater in Kioto.

This theater developed in two ways:

1. a "legitimate" playhouse with living actors,
2. and a marionette or puppet show.

Both these forms of entertainment became popular in the seventeenth century, when the art of the actor and the dramatist improved. We may infer that it was then fashionable for members of the aristocracy to attend these plays, also that quarrels in the playhouse were not unknown; for about 1683 an ordinance was passed prohibiting the wearing of swords in the theater.