No and the Aesthetics of the Post‐Modern Theater

Abstract

The Empty Space (1969) by Peter Brook emphasized the intrinsic features of the contemporary theater. The new aesthetics of the post‐modern theater, which dates from Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1952), enabled the revival of the No theater in the Western world, favoring the No over the Kabuki tradition. This essay presents the analogous elements of two aesthetics: the aesthetic of No and the aesthetic of the post‐modern theater. Of the two characters appearing on a bare stage in the late plays of Beckett, one is a catalyst of memory — as the waki in the No plays, another recollects his or her memories — as the shite. In the second part of No, the shite arises as a ghost, while in Beckett's plays the recollection of memories symbolizes a process of dying. Satori — the term of No rooted in Buddhism — is analogically fitting in the aesthetics of Beckett's drama. The works of Peter Brook, Robert Wilson and Jerzy Grotowski exemplify the most characteristic features of post‐modern theater that are in some way analogous to the aesthetics of No.