Mideval Japanese Culture in Macbeth and Throne of Blood

Mideval Japanese Culture in Macbeth and Throne of Blood

Throughout history, the Japanese have been performing in the theaters. One of the oldest forms of Japanese Theater is the Noh form. This form of theater is capable of showing intense, complicated emotions and concepts of humanity with the simplest movements and props. Noh Theater has many universal concepts that are performed with Japanese tradition. When these Japanese traditions are applied to the universal concepts of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, we get Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood.
Noh Theater is still one of the more popular forms of theater in Japan. In medieval Japan, Noh Theater was for the upper class men because they were the only one’s educated enough to be able to interpret the movements and symbols of the play and be able to understand what was going on.   Noh is a very sacred form of theater and is performed completely by men like the original Shakespearean productions were. This is because the theater houses are like temples and it is said that if a woman were to touch one, it would have to be burned. (Shan Ayers)
Noh Theater is incredibly serious and everything is about simplicity. There are very few props used and one prop, such as a fan, can be used as many different things. The actors move very little but the slightest movement can mean something extremely important to the story line. Because of this, Noh Theater is very complicated and hard to understand. All of the actors of Noh Theater wear masks that symbolize the characters in the play. Though the faces of the masks are actually static, the way the actor angles their head to allow the lighting to reflect off of the face changes the emotion on the mask. Actors can train for fifteen to twenty plus years to learn the exact way to position their body so that the “expression” on the mask is correct and the movement of their body tells the audience what it is supposed to. The actors of Noh Theater never speak and they barely move. The story is told by a chanting chorus, symbolic drum beats and...