Sando

• Date: 1423
• Author: Zeami
• Japanese: 三道 (sandou)

Sandô ("Three Paths") is a text on Noh playwriting composed in 1423 by Zeami Motokiyo. It is among his more prominent writings, and his only text explicitly devoted to the topic of playwriting.

The text is divided into three sections:

1. The Three Paths (sandô), including an introduction, and discussion of the techniques of material (shu, 種), structure (saku), and writing (sho).
2. The Three Styles (santai), including discussions of the venerable style (rôtai), feminine style (nyotai), and martial style (guntai).
3. Miscellaneous, including the role of the hôka entertainer, the role of the demon, the ear- and eye-opening, Noh plays for young actors, revision of plays, and the centrality of yûgen

Three Paths

In the Three Paths, Zeami discusses three key aspects of playwriting, beginning with the types of characters that make for the best Noh pieces, then discussing rhythmic and narrative aspects of the structure of the plot, before finishing with a discussion of the composition of the language, i.e. the lines chanted onstage.

Shelley Fenno Quinn translates the first of the three "paths," shu, as "material," but points out the character more literally means "seed" or "kernel." In this section, Zeami suggests that since a shite actor's performance consists chiefly of song/chant (utai) and dance (mai), a shite role inclined towards literary qualities is ideal for making it easier for the actor to achieve an effect of grace and yûgen. To that end, he suggests four categories of ideal figures: hôka entertainers, kagura performers, and men and women associated with the arts.

The second of the three "paths" is structure, or saku. In this section, Zeami discusses the organization of a play in terms of overall rhythm and pacing, and use of vocal and dance elements. He describes a five-step development process for organizing plays based on the fundamental principle of jo-ha-kyû, outlining his ideal structure of a five-dan (five part) Noh play. He also emphasizes that a playwright must not only take jo-ha-kyû as a guideline for his own organization of the play, but must also take care to design a play such that the performers can employ the principle in their performance.

Three Styles

Here, Zeami discusses three basic styles of representation. He uses the play Takasago as his model for discussing the venerable style (rôtai), cites plays in which the protagonist is the ghost of a warrior as the ideal examples of plays in the martial style (guntai), and suggests that plays featuring the ghosts of aristocratic women, such as the characters Yûgao, Ukifune, and Lady Rokujô from the Tale of Genji, as the paragon of plays in the feminine style (nyotai).

References

• Shelley Fenno Quinn, Developing Zeami, University of Hawaii Press (2005), 115-146.