Unit 3, Lesson 1

Describe and discuss with fellow students your reactions to the Kyogen play Busu. Do you see parallels between the comedy of Kyogen and your favorite sit-coms or comic films? If so, please describe these parallels.

The voices are slow and exaggerated, their movements slow and punctuated, and the storyline was short but seemed long. I feel lost in trying to figure out the intention of the story, due to watching western plays and movies for years; I could not understand the slower and exaggerated version presented in the Kyogen. Kyogen are interludes to Noh plays. Noh plays tend to be more musical and complicated. I suppose that the interludes are simple because they do not want to overshadow the Noh.

There are several characteristics within the Kyogen play that I noticed:

• The stage is very sparse and few props are used.
• The cast is very small.
• The humor is very simple and slapstick.

The Japanese Kyogen play Busu reminds me of Charlie Chaplin movie. The way Charlie would walk penguin style across the stage, the actors of play Busu walked much smoother but did not walk realistically. The humor was 100% slapstick and not very funny in my opinion. I tend to lend more toward Mighty Python and Family Guy so comedic relief. An interesting connection between Chinese Opera and Japanese Kyogen plays are similar. Both are very theatric and exaggerated and both use very “exasperating” vocal tones. Despite, all of my reservations, I am very interested in knowing more about the cultural influences on Noh and the Kyogen interludes.