‘Noh’, the Japanese word for skill or talent, is a type of theatre which has been performed since the 14th Century. Noh No Noh gives us a slice of this culture but also includes a blend of modern techniques, a mould of contemporary performance if you will, chiefly addressing femininity. The prologue and epilogue are both in Japanese and are subtitled by a projection on the back wall. This works to an extent, but because of the staging the projections were sometimes blocked. Further, some of the subtitles changed too quickly which was possibly a technical issue, but meant that huge pieces of information were lost and the scenes were hard to follow because of this. This was the only multimedia used in the performance which does not quite live up to the ‘multimedia manipulations’ advertised in the Fringe programme.The rest of the performance is in English and is in two parts. The first is a tale of a woman gone mad waiting for her lover. Upon his return she can’t accept that it is him, choosing to continue to wait. Hanjo, the woman waiting, is represented excellently through a simple silver mask and glove, puppeteered by Yuki Ikezawa. Jacqueline Coombs plays an artist looking after Hanjo but her reasons for her care are revealed to be more sinister once the lover returns. The second tale is focused on a ninety-nine year old woman, also played by Coombs, recounting her story centered around fatal beauty. Ikezawa and Coomb’s performances shone through above others which seemed wooden; mainly, I believe, because of the language barrier.Although there are flaws to the performance through the staging and acting sometimes being poor, the show touches upon an interesting part of Japanese theatre culture, whetting the appetite to find out more about Noh theatre, and to discover more modern adaptations or original displays of this type of theatre.
