Five Modern No Plays

Book excerpt: Japanese No drama is one of the great art forms that has fascinated people throughout the world. The late Yukio Mishima, one of Japan's outstanding post-war writers, infused new life into the form by using it for plays that preserve the style and inner spirit of No and are at the same time so modern, so direct, and intelligible that they could, as he suggested, be played on a bench in Central Park. Here are five of his No plays, stunning in their contemporary nature and relevance—and finally made available again for readers to enjoy.