"Between Two Worlds":
the Dybbuk and
the Japanese Noh and Kabuki ghost plays.
Publication: Comparative Drama
Publication Date: 22-SEP-01
Author: Serper, Zvika
COPYRIGHT 2001 www.wmich.edu/compdr
The play's themes, structures, dramatic means, and theatrical elements
show a remarkable similarity to those of many plays in the repertoire
of Japanese traditional theater, especially of Noh, the aristocratic
lyrical theatrical form that was established in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. Noh draws its material from many sources and its
form from ritual and folk dances. It is essentially a drama of
soliloquy and reminiscence of the main character who in many plays
begins as a reincarnation and then appears as a ghost. There are
enormous differences in many respects between the backgrounds of this
singular Western play, The Dybbuk, and the Eastern traditional Japanese
theater and drama. Whereas the belief in dead spirits, reincarnation,
and ghosts is quite common in Japanese thought, such beliefs were and
still are not part of mainstream Jewish belief. The ritual that has
always played an important role as a connection between beliefs and
their artistic/performative embodiments is very developed in Japan but
not in Judaism, in which belief is based mostly on verbal expression.
Further, theater was discouraged in Judaism. The Dybbuk is therefore
not a characteristic play in the Jewish or Israeli repertoire, and
since few other plays deal with a dybbuk (a discontented dead spirit
that takes possession of the body of a living human being) or gilgul
neshamot (transmigration of souls), it is impossible to analyze this
play as part of any dramatic genre. In spite of these differences,
however, a comparison between various elements in The Dybbuk with those
in Japanese Noh and Kabuki (traditional popular theater) ghost plays
can provide a better comprehension of the various aspects of both this
singular Western play and the traditional Japanese ghost plays.
Belief in Dead Spirits, Reincarnation, and Dybbuks
In Japan, belief in the existence of the soul, in spirits of the dead,
and in reincarnation is ancient and widespread. The Japanese believe
that the soul and the body are two separate entities, and this belief
exists in both the original Shinto religion and the imported Buddhism
that entered Japan in 552 C.E. and created a synthesis with Shinto in
various elements. This synthesis, in turn, influenced the performing
arts. (3) One of the expressions of this belief is the erection of two
separate graves: one for the impure body and another for the soul.
After death the soul (tamashii) wanders for several years until it is
purified and becomes a quasi-god (kami) that resides in another world,
beyond the sea or sky. It is there that the dead spirits become the
ancestral souls. At the time of death, the soul of a person can become
either an angered or a peaceful spirit, according to the psychological
status of the person at the moment of death. Emotions such as jealous
love or hatred will engender a very dangerous spirit. The spirit of an
unmarried man or woman or of one killed in an accident will be
disturbed after death and will face difficulty in entering the other
world. Such hurt spirits can return to the mortal world and attack
human beings.
This belief led to the creation of various rituals aimed at honoring
the purified spirits and at appeasing the disturbed ones so that they
will refrain from doing harm. (4) The most important such event is
obon, the Festival of the Dead nowadays celebrated in mid-August,
during which the families prepare to welcome the dead spirits of
deceased relatives, who come to visit. The families go to the
graveyard, clean the graves, put flowers and offerings on them, and in
the evening they return to invite the dead to their home for several
days before accompanying them back to the graveyard, where the spirits
return to the otherworld.
The belief that a soul reincarnates was established in Japan by
Buddhism, which teaches that one can reach nirvana (salvation), through
which the soul stops reincarnating and merges together with the cosmos.
This ideal is achieved by seeking an alternative, more contented life
that leads to progressively better reincarnations, until the soul is
eventually freed from the foolishness of this world forever.
The possession phenomenon and the vanquishing of the spirit by
transferring it to a medium and causing it to speak have existed in
Japan since the ninth century, when Buddhist esoteric sorcery entered
Japan from China. The use of mediums to make spirits talk and thus to
expel a possession is still evident in modern times. In 1967, Carmen
Blacker observed several methods of exorcism of demonic possession in
which the exorcist forced the evil spirit to transfer itself into the
body of a medium. The demonic spirit then had to name itself and
conduct a dialogue with the exorcist. Blacker witnessed how several
such possessions were expelled in the course of one morning through a
single woman who was employed as medium for all of them. One of the
possessed was a woman whose dead husband's spirit had entered her out
of concern for the welfare of his family. (5)
Judaism, too, has always contained a certain, albeit minor, stream of
belief in the existence of dead spirits, of the possibility of
communicating with them through summoning them to this world, of their
incarnation as other living human beings, and in the phenomenon of the
dybbuk. Seeking a link with a dead spirit is referred to in the Bible.
King Saul goes to the witch of Ein Dor, who summons for him the dead
spirit of the prophet Samuel. She sees the spirit while King Saul only
hears his voice. (6) There are no sources that present any detailed
description of an actual summoning of the dead and of its appearance,
but Sefer ha'razim (Book of Secrets), which was composed during the
period of the Talmud in the first centuries C.E., gives very detailed
instructions--the incantation and the entire precise and complicated
procedure--for summoning up a dead spirit. (7)
According to Gershom Scholem, in Judaism the belief in gilgul neshamot
(reincarnation), which has been traced to the thirteenth century,
comprises two different phases: gilgul, "reincarnation," and ibur,
"impregnation." In gilgul neshamot the dead spirit enters a new body
during the gestation or birth of the person. In ibur, during a special
moment in life, a person's soul is impregnated with that of another,
and this alien soul may remain throughout the rest of life but may also
leave. In later periods, a distinction was made between ibur tov (good
impregnation) and ibur ra (bad impregnation). In "good impregnation" a
Hasidic rabbi's soul, entering the body, helps the person and
strengthens his or her positive powers; and in contrast, a "bad
impregnation" (which Scholem calls "a dybbuk," a term that first
appeared in the Yiddish language in the seventeenth century) can ruin
the possessed individual. The latter is able to enter the body of a
person who has severely transgressed. (8)
In the introduction to his book "Dybbuk" Tales in Jewish Literature, a
collection of about ninety reports and tales, Gedalyah Nigal analyzes
the historic development of the dybbuk tales and the various aspects of
this phenomenon. (9) The belief in dybbuks existed mainly in certain
circles of Judaism from the seventeenth until the nineteenth century,
(10) but there are still rare accounts of such beliefs and phenomena in
strains of Judaism that tend toward mystical-magical thought such as
the Cabala, though they are not characteristic of the mainstream.
From Belief to Stage Performance
In Japan there is a direct link between belief in the existence of
souls, the related rituals, and the theatrical artistic expression of
these themes in the Noh theater. In ancient Japan a medium provided a
link with dead souls through various shamanistic rituals; later, a kami
appeared through a medium and communicated with the people in
performances of kagura (sacred Shinto music and dancing). A theater
performer "possessed" by a dead soul or a god preserves the essence of
these rituals and performances.
The patterns of Noh plays are similar in structure to these rituals and
performances, and the terminology of the performances is the same. The
ritual structure comprises either two parts or one continuous part. In
a two-part ritual, the medium appears first as an ordinary person who
enters a trance with the support of the community. After the spirit of
a quasi-god or dead person has entered the medium during the climax of
the trance, a representative of the community calls upon that spirit to
speak, and this part ends with a request for the actual appearance of
the being. Until this point the medium is "human." In the second part,
the medium appears as the summoned being, god, or demon, with the
appropriate mask and costume. Sometimes the ritual comprises only one
part, in which the medium enters in the mask and costume of the other
being, already in the state of spiritual possession but unidentified.
As a result of the representative's questions, the spirit then reveals
its identity. In these rituals the possessed medium was called shire
(doer), and the representative of the community who called upon the
medium to speak was called waki (side). This is the same terminology
used for the Noh characters: the protagonist is called shire and the
deuteragonist is called waki. The essence of these rituals and
performances is also embodied in Noh--the manifestation of a spirit or
a god through a medium-performer. (11)
The ceremonial functions in the rituals and in Noh are also the same.
The appearance of the soul of a dead person in Noh has various
manifestations. Usually, the ghost appears as a reincarnation of its
previous self. Noh often but not always employs the dream pattern to
enable the dead character to appear on the stage in its original form.
The ghosts can be divided into two kinds: the restless soul that
appears to request prayers for tranquility, and the evil spirit that
constitutes an existential threat. In the latter case, the struggle
against this threatening being always ends with it being vanquished as
a clear manifestation of the existential ritualistic pattern of the
Noh.
The Noh plays are classified into five categories (goban date)
according to the identity of the main character and its dramatic
function in the Noh cycle. These include: gods (kami no); ghosts of
mostly male warriors (shura no); ghosts of lovelorn women (katsura
mono); various young men and lunatic women (kyojo mono); and demonic
beings (kichiku no). (12) During the years of Noh consolidation, the
opening of the Noh cycle came to comprise the gods bestowing their
blessing upon the world, while at the end the threatening demon-beasts
are subjugated by the pious people or by warriors. Between the divine
blessing and the defeated threat in the opening and closing of the
cycle, two phases of existence are revealed: that of the ghosts, who
seek consolation in order to calm their disturbed existence, and that
of live mortals. (13)
In contrast to the direct link between beliefs and theatrical
expression in Japan, no such connection exists in Judaism since theater
was always discouraged; making a "mask" is forbidden in the Bible. (14)
The various reincarnations in The Dybbuk are undoubtedly the result of
Ansky's strong interest in ghosts, incarnations, dybbuks, and demons.
He explored Jewish folklore for several years before he wrote The
Dybbuk, and Pinchas Grauberd, a collector of Jewish folklore, testifies
to Ansky's specific interest in repelling the dybbuk: "Already then I
noticed that the subject of the dybbuk was not within the bounds of
collecting material for him, but rather an intimate deep interest
destined to be incarnated to his own creation." (15) The various
aspects of dybbuk, reincarnations, and ghostly appearances enabled
Ansky's construction of several rich and complicated dramatic patterns
in The Dybbuk.
Possession by a Dybbuk/Demon
The most immediate and simplest theme of the play is that of the dybbuk
which must be exorcised. Here, as in Noh, a religious person, a rabbi,
functions like the waki in Noh. He compels the dybbuk to tell its whole
story from before its death, the reason for the possession, and the
history of the soul until it took possession. Only then can the rabbi
exorcize the dybbuk and force it to leave the possessed individual.
Causing the dybbuk to speak serves to heal the possessing soul and is
similar to the speech, chant, and dance performed by the incarnation
and ghost in Noh in bringing peace and tranquility to the disturbed
spirit.
In The Dybbuk two characters introduce the idea that the disturbed
spirit of a deceased person can enter as a dybbuk into the body of a
live person even before Chanan's soul enters the body of Leah. Freda,
Leah's old nanny, divides the dead spirits into two kinds: pure souls
that fly to the sky and remain in Eden; and evil spirits that lie in
ambush in corners, holes, and crevices. The latter await the moment
that somebody mentions them, at which point they fall upon and harm
that person. Whereas Freda presents the negative approach to the
dybbuk, the Messenger presents the positive side of the phenomenon. In
the play, the Messenger is a highly interesting character, not only
introducing the main entities, which appear as a result of his
mentioning them, but also causing them to speak in much the same way as
the waki does in Noh. Above all, he prophesies the events that will
occur, relates them to the other characters and thus to the audience,
and interprets their meaning. In a sense, he functions somewhat like
the prophet Elijah disguised as an ordinary person--an idea that is
presented in the play by other characters. (16) In the context of the
dybbuk, the Messenger tells Leah that "there is a soul that belongs
nowhere that finds no rest and enters a living body as a `dybbuk' ...
and thereby attains tikkun [purification]." (17) His explanation for
the dybbuk manifestation precedes and foresees the appearance of
Chanan's spirit as a dybbuk.
On the simplistic level of The Dybbuk plot, a lover who cannot realize
his love dies, and his restless soul enters as a dybbuk into his
beloved. A poor young Yeshiva student, Chanan, loves Leah, the daughter
of the wealthy Sender. Chanan believes that she is predestined to
become his bride; Leah's father does not agree. He tries to find her a
rich and well-born bridegroom, and eventually breaks off negotiations
with three prospective husbands due to his dissatisfaction with the
financial terms. During the father's efforts, Chanan experiments with
the spiritual magic of the Cabala to win his beloved Leah. Eventually,
however, Leah is promised to a rich bridegroom, and Chanan dies in
anguish. On the wedding day, as the bridegroom approaches, Chanan
returns as a dybbuk to take possession of Leah's body. The dybbuk,
speaking from within Leah, refuses to leave her body and declines to
answer the questions about its identity. The desperate Sender takes
Leah to Rabbi Azriel, a Hasidic sage, to drive out the demonic dybbuk.
During the course of the ceremony certain secrets from the past are
revealed: the fathers of Chanan and Leah had been friends and had
promised their unborn children to one another in marriage should they
be a boy and a girlma promise tragically unfulfilled. Chanan's
aggrieved father, having long ago died in poverty, calls Leah's wealthy
father to din torah (rabbinical trial) from beyond the grave. After
this matter is clarified, Rabbi Azriel conducts a special ceremony to
exorcize the dybbuk, and Leah returns to sanity. But before the delayed
wedding can take place Leah hears the voice of her lover calling her.
She goes toward him and their souls merge together forever, ascending
to heaven.
This pattern of unfulfilled love that leads the suffering spirit to
reside in the body of the living beloved has some similarities to the
pattern of the Noh play Aoi no Ue (The Lady Aoi). This is an onryo
(revengeful ghost) play from the fourth (and/or fifth) category in
which the demonic spirit of Lady Rokujo leaves her live body due to her
jealousy and hatred of Lady Aoi, who is married to Rokujo's former
lover, Prince Genji. Rokujo inflicts a mysterious and mortal illness
upon Aoi, who is represented onstage by a folded kimono. In the first
part of the play, a priestess with the power to cause a spirit to
manifest itself and speak invokes the evil spirit of Rokujo to appear
and recount her hatred of Aoi. She becomes furious, beats Aoi, and
leaves. In the second part of the play, a holy man, yamabushi (mountain
ascetic), who has the power to cause the demon to appear in its real
form, is hurriedly summoned and performs his rites. Whereas the figure
of Rokujo in the first part was that of a pathetic lovelorn princess,
this time the live spirit (ikiryo) of Rokujo that has left her living
body appears as a terrible and furious demon. The holy man fights with
the demon. As always in Noh, he finally vanquishes the demon and
rescues Aoi no Ue.
Ghostly Appearance
The two associated dead spirits in The Dybbuk (Chanan and his father,
Nissan ben Krayne) comprise contrasting dramatic characteristics and
modes of appearing: unlike the gradual summoning and dissatisfied
appearance of Nissan's ghost--unseen and unheard, except through the
medium--his son's ghost is not summoned, his appearance is gradually
heard and seen, and eventually there is a satisfactory result. The
ghost of Nissan is first manifested as an unrequited spirit in Reb
Shimshon's dream, and we hear about it from Reb Shimshon afterward.
Then the spirit is summoned to the rabbinical trial. The play presents
a detailed ritual to summon the dead: Rabbi Azriel sends his gabai
(manager of the synagogue affairs) to the graveyard with his cane to
choose any grave, knock on it three times, appeal to the dead to summon
the spirit of Nissan, repeat this request three times, and then leave
the place. Before the deceased arrives, Rabbi Azriel marks the left
corner with a circle, and two men bring a sheet with which they
partition off the corner for the deceased. After Nissan's spirit has
arrived, Reb Shimshon serves as a medium through which we hear the
speech of the spirit told in third person. At first the dead accuses
Sender of causing the death of his son by violating their mutual vow
and thus leading Chanan to choose his fatal path. The compensation
offered to Nissan's ghost, which he does not accept, is the kaddish
(prayer for the dead souls) for his and his son's souls, a religious
compensation quite similar to that given to the unrequited spirits at
the end of the second and third category Noh plays.
At the
end of The Dybbuk, after he is driven out as a dybbuk from Leah's body,
Chanan's ghost appears as an unrequited soul, but the form and result
of his appearance are in contrast to those of his father's summoning.
Whereas his father's ghost is summoned up in a very detailed ceremony,
Chanan's ghost is not invited at all. After his appearance, this
ghost--unseen, from behind the back wall--first speaks to Leah, who is
encircled by Rabbi Azriel's mark that is intended to protect her from
the dead spirit. After Chanan and Leah express their mutual love, she
invites him, and Chanan declares that he is coming to join her soul.
Leah says happily that the circle barrier is broken, and only then does
Chanan appear in the wall. Here, the audience hears and sees the ghost,
whose appearance concludes the play. In contrast to the unsatisfied
ghost of Nissan, despite the eventual religious compensation, Chanan's
ghost is satisfactorily reunited with his beloved and destined bride.
The main characters of the Noh's third category plays are the ghosts of
romantic or lovelorn women whose love was unrequited, and they appear
in order to obtain the peace of mind they desire. They appear either in
a one-part play or in the second part of two-part play. In Matsukaze a
traveling priest meets a pair of women who are actually the ghosts, not
reincarnations, of two women, Matsukaze and Murasame, who were loved by
the poet Yukihira. When they hear the priest reciting a song that was
written by the poet, they reveal their identity to him and tell him
about their love for the poet. Then Matsukaze puts on the poet's cap
and garment and dances. In another play, Izutsu (Well-Rim), the shite
appears in the first part as an incarnation of the daughter of Ki no
Aritsune, who spent her entire life loving the poet Ariwara no
Narihira. In the second part of the play the shite appears as the ghost
of Ki no Aritsune's daughter, wearing her lover's hat and robe. She
dances, as Narihira once had, but in a very feminine fashion.
Reincarnation
Another possible and perhaps more complicated reading of The Dybbuk is
found in the aspect of reincarnation, which is the most characteristic
dramatic pattern of the second and third categories of Noh plays. In
The Dybbuk this theme is raised through the words of certain
characters. The Batlanim (scholarly idlers) and Leah introduce the idea
that a restless soul will return to our world to attain tranquility.
The chant of the Batlanim that opens and concludes the play imbues the
whole drama with the motif of the soul's existence and its necessary
alternate transitions between life and death:
Why, for what reason, Does the soul descend From the soaring heights To the
abysmal depths?--The fall is the rise's necessity, The fall is the rise's
necessity. (18)
The main motif in the play is that of dead souls that return to this world in order to fulfil a certain intention that had not been fulfilled during their lifetime. Leah clearly expresses this idea: "The soul of a person who has died prematurely returns to this world and naked of the body's form, will complete the span of life. It finishes the undone deeds and celebrates in his place his joys, and accepts his sorrows." (19) The Messenger, unseen by Leah, hears this statement; later, reacting to it, he interprets this aspect and presents the manifestation of this theme in the play by characterizing two kinds of reincarnations:
The souls of the dead really do return to earth, but not as disembodied
spirits, as you imagine. Sometimes a soul goes through several
incarnations, until it achieves purification.... Sinful souls are
transformed into animals, birds, and fishes or even plants. They cannot
ascend by themselves--a poultice cannot untie itself--and they wait for one
of the Tzadikim [righteous men] who will bring them their tikkun
["reclamation"--purification]. And there are souls who in their new
incarnation purify by themselves what they had spoilt in their previous
incarnations.... (20)
Immediately after the death of Chanan at the end of act 1, the beginning of the next act presents the grave of a bride and groom who were murdered at the synagogue during their wedding in the pogrom of 1648, and who are buried together in this unique location. In the middle of act 2 Leah approaches this holy grave with its pair of lovers who were unable to fulfill their love during their lifetime, and she talks about her connection with them:
Here is the holy grave. I have known it already from my childhood. I know
the bride and groom sepulchered there. I have seen them in my dreams and in
my waking hours, and they are as dear to me as my own kin.... (21)
She proceeds to describe the tragic end of this happy young couple who had intended to live a long and beautiful life together, but whose lives were cut short by evil people who, hacking them to death with axes, had sent them to their entombment together for all eternity. She mentions that at every wedding when there is dancing around the grave, the dead couple rises up and joins in the joy of the live bride and groom. Then Leah, approaching the grave, invites them to her wedding. At the end of act 2 she dashes over to the grave to ask their protection against marrying the groom chosen for her by her father. She falls upon the grave, and, when she is lifted up from it, she stares around crazily and cries out in a masculine voice. The dybbuk of Chanan, her true destined groom, has entered her while she lay on the holy tomb.
Several dramatic elements associated with this holy grave suggest that Leah and Chanan are actually reincarnations of the bride and groom who are buried in this grave, and that they had been so from the moment that their fathers made their vow to wed their unborn children. The grave and the holy couple are presented at the beginning of act 2, immediately after Chanan's death at the end of act 1, and the first appearance of Chanan as a dybbuk possessing Leah takes place by the grave at the end of act 2. Between these events, we hear about the unusual, or even unrealistic, connection between Leah and the dead couple, for otherwise it would be impossible to understand her ability to see dead people while she is awake. In this interpretation, the whole play is about a reincarnated couple who re-experience their past, as happens, for example, in the Noh play Dojoji (Dojo Temple), in which a temple bell has a similar symbolic function to that of the grave in The Dybbuk.
In Dojoji a female dancer arrives at Dojo temple requesting to dance at the celebration for the installation of a new bell. Although women are forbidden to enter, she persuades the priests to let her in. She dances and then moves beneath the bell and pulls it down on top of her. The priests recall the historical event associated with the bell: A lustful widow was attracted to a handsome young priest and demanded that he sleep with her. Her advances dismayed the priest, but in order to appease her he promised that upon return from his pilgrimage he would spend the night with her. He took another road, however, and the widow, realizing that she had been spurned despite her long, impatient wait, lent herself to such intense wrath that she turned into a serpent. In this form she pursued the priest to the Dojo temple where he had hidden beneath the bell. She coiled herself around the bell and took her revenge on the priest by reducing it to a flaming molten mass. Now the priests realize that this is the incarnation of the same woman. Approaching the bell, they murmur their invocations and rub their rosaries. When they lift the bell the serpent is revealed, but then is vanquished by the priests by means of their holy power. However, the basic pattern of the play involves the female dancer arriving at the temple to experience past events. Similarly, in The Dybbuk Leah and Chanan, realizing their love only through coming together in death at the end of the play, can be seen as reincarnations of the historic couple, re-experiencing the essence of their former life.
At the beginning of The Dybbuk, Ansky introduces a very short and unconnected episode to strengthen the theme of incarnations as an interpretative analogue to the main plot that has not yet begun. An old woman rushes into the synagogue with her two grandchildren and pleads for the soul of her daughter who has lain dying for two days. The Messenger, explaining the case, thereby introduces a possible reincarnation, for he predicts that upon the death of the old woman's daughter, her soul will reincarnate as the soul of a baby of another woman, who has spent two days in a difficult birth:
This morning a woman cried before the Holy Ark, pleading for her daughter
who has been in labor for two days and cannot give birth, and now a woman
prays for her daughter who has been struggling with death for two days....
The soul of the dying woman is destined to enter the child, who is supposed
to be born. As long as the one is still alive, her pregnant friend cannot
give birth. And if the sick woman recovers--the pregnant woman will give
birth to a dead child. (22)
Transition from Life to Death
As I have shown, The Dybbuk features most of the dramatic patterns of ghosts and reincarnations found in Noh, and these are woven together in a single play. But the complex dichotomy of life and death in the play has additional manifestations beyond the Noh treatment of this theme. The Dybbuk stages the aspect of transition from life to death of lovers who cannot realize their love in this world but nevertheless reunite in the next one. Their deaths are designed dichotomously according to whether the death leads to separation or reunion. The death of Chanan, separated from his beloved Leah, is quick, concealed, dark, and expressed through his collapse after a few very short "breathless" sentences. The Messenger opens the lantern and says, "the candle has burnt out. A new one must be lit." And Sender says, "Why is it so dark here? Meyerke, light some candles." (23) At the end of the act Chanan is found lying dead on the floor. In contrast, the death of Leah, which enables her spirit to reunite with her beloved Chanan, is prolonged, detailed, brightly lit, and expressed through her ascent to heaven. After his ghost calls out to her at the end of the play to come and join him, she happily responds, takes off her black coat, and, all in white, walks toward him, then stands in his place as he disappears. Leah's last speech in the play strengthens the feeling of light: "A great light flows around. I am united with you for all eternity, my bridegroom.... Together we soar and ascend twined higher and higher, ever higher." (24) Immediately after she finishes this speech, the stage begins to darken, contrasting the visual and verbal expression of light that had been created.
Although the Noh brings the audience together with the spirits of the dead by summoning them to this world, it does not portray the opposite direction of movement--from this world to the next. The Noh stage has no scenes of transition of a living being to the world of the dead. However, Kabuki theater, which appeared later and responded to a more popular-taste audience with different demands than those of Noh, has particularly developed this latter aspect. Kabuki emerged from ceremonial dances and from the seductive performances given by both male and female prostitutes during the first half of the seventeenth century; it then evolved into its present form. It is commercial in outlook, and its plays are usually a framework for the all-male actors to display their virtuosity, adopting whatever might draw audiences with the subject matter being taken from various sources. The Kabuki stage is wide and relatively shallow, and the scenery can be very elaborate and colorful, as are the costumes. The performance can range from a semirealistic style in plays dealing with themes of daily life, to a very exaggerated display, and even to pure dance.
One of the most famous death scenes in Kabuki, for which many plays have been written, involves a lovers' suicide, which is called shinju. When a man and a woman who are in love are unable to realize their love (e.g., when a married man falls in love with a prostitute but is unable to redeem her in order to marry her), the two of them commit suicide in order to be reunited in their next incarnation. The climax of the play is the exit and walking toward death, which is called michi yuki (walking in the way), and of course the mutual suicide itself, which is presented onstage in a very detailed fashion. In Shinju ten no amijima (The Love Suicide at Amijima), Kamiya Jihei, a husband and father, tries to redeem the courtesan Koharu, with whom he has had a love affair; he fails, and his rival in love ransoms her. At the end of the play Jihei and Koharu commit suicide: he stabs her and then hangs himself. Unlike Kabuki, the exit of the two lovers as ghosts to their life together in the next world at the end of The Dybbuk actually realizes onstage the ideal essence of the lovers' suicide in Kabuki plays. The reunion of the lovers' ghosts in the next world is never presented on the Kabuki stage, which leaves it to the audience to complete this action in their imaginations.
The existential process through which Chanan, the protagonist in The Dybbuk, goes comprises three entities: living being, dybbuk, and ghost. Such transformations have various manifestations in Kabuki, which developed a special genre in which a character dies onstage only to reappear later as a ghost. This genre is called kaidan (ghost story). In the play Tokaido yotsuya kaidan (The Ghost Stories at Yotsuya [village] on the Tokaido [way]), the most famous ghost play in the Kabuki repertoire, two characters appear first as living beings and then, after their deaths, as ghosts. Act 2 portrays Tamiya Iemon, a ronin (masterless samurai), as a handsome man who lives peacefully with his wife, Oiwa, and son until the rich neighbor's daughter, Oume, falls in love with him. Her parents send poison in the guise of medicine to his wife, who is still weak after giving birth, in order to persuade Iemon to abandon his wife and marry Oume. The poison horribly disfigures Oiwa's face, and she discovers that her husband wants to divorce her. She cuts her throat with her husband's sword and dies cursing him. Later, Iemon kills his servant Kohei, who had earlier pleaded with him to cure Oiwa and who had witnessed his cruelty. The bodies of Oiwa and Kohei are nailed to the opposite sides of a large door by Iemon's cronies and thrown into a river.
Later in act 3, in a famous scene known as toitagaeshi (door transformation), the corpses of Oiwa and Kohei come to life as real ghosts. Iemon is wandering along the riverbank when suddenly the door with the body of Oiwa tied to it rises from the river. She raises her head and calls imploringly to her husband, Iemon thrusts the door back into the river, but it rises again, this time revealing on the other side the body of Kohei, who opens his eyes, stretches his hand toward him and cries, "Master, the illness is very serious, please give me the medicine [for Oiwa]." (25)
The transition from life to death, possession by a dybbuk, and appearance of a ghost are all manifested by a single character in the Kabuki dance-play Iro moyo chotto karimae, known in brief as Kasane (the name of its heroine). (26) The play starts in the same fashion as the concluding part of a shinju play: Yoemon and Kasane, who have had an illicit love affair, approach a small river, where Kasane begs Yoemon to kill her, too, if he must commit suicide (to perform shinju). During their fond farewell a skeleton floats down the river. Kasane sees it and flinches in terror. Yoemon lifts up the skull, which has a scythe stuck through it. He reads the wooden grave marker on which it was floating and understands that it is the skull of Suke, whom he had murdered years ago after an affair with his wife, Kiku. Until this moment Yoemon does not know that Kasane is the daughter of his former lover Kiku and of Suke, and Kasane does not know about her mother's love affair with Yoemon or that he is the murderer of her father.
Now the dybbuk appears. Yoemon cleaves the wooden grave marker in two, and Kasane emits a cry of pain. When he pulls the scythe out of the skull and cleaves it in two, Kasane shrieks again: the vengeful spirit of her murdered father has entered into her as a dybbuk, affecting her face as horribly as if it were disfigured by the scythe. Through a letter dropped by two men who appear and fight with Yoemon, he understands that he is being sought for Suke's murder. Kasane, still unaware of her disfiguration, approaches him with a newly developed severe limp, and he realizes in horror that she is Suke's daughter. She clings to him, but he tries to repel her and eventually attacks and wounds her with the scythe. He forces her to look at her face in the mirror and tells her that he is her father's murderer. Kasane becomes a frenzied spirit, whereupon Yoemon, having no other choice, kills her with the scythe and leaves the stage through the hanamichi (flower path)--a raised passageway that connects the Kabuki stage on the audience's left to the rear of the theater.
The play ends with the appearance of Kasane's ghost. The dead Kasane, who is lying on the stage, starts to rise as a ghost with the characteristic ghostly gesture of slightly outstretched palms. To a drum-beat she pulls Yoemon, spinning around, back to the stage from the rear entrance of the hanamichi, while she rises higher and higher in the air in a movement called chunori, torturing Yoemon. There is a theatrical freeze (mie), and the play ends. In this Kabuki piece we see the heroine as a beautiful live lady, as possessed by a male dybbuk that disfigures her; after her death, she appears as a ghost.
Dream as a Dramatic Pattern
In The Dybbuk the exposure and summoning of the dead spirit is done through a dream. After the dybbuk refuses to leave the body of Leah and is not ready to identify itself, Reb Shimshon tells Rabbi Azriel and the attendants that its identity has been revealed to him through a dream:
Reb Shimshon: ... Rabbi, do you remember a student who used to come to your
home many years ago? His name was Nissan. A great student, and Cabalist ...
Rabbi Azriel: I remember, he died in his prime. Reb Shimshon: Last night he
was revealed to me three times in my dreams, and told me that the dybbuk
that has entered the virgin's body is the soul of his son, and that he
demands to bring Sender to trial at a din torah [rabbinical trial], since
Sender is responsible for his son's soul. (27)
After identification of the dybbuk through the dream, the summoning of the dead spirit of Nissan, the dybbuk's father, is performed through hatavath chalom (dream mitigation), a ceremony and prayer to ensure that the dream results in good, not evil. The prayer spoken at this ceremony still exists in the present-day Jewish prayer book. Rabbi Azriel says, "Tomorrow after vatikin [early morning service], God willing, we will mitigate a dream in the dybbuk's honor, and we will summon the deceased to the rabbinical trial, and afterwards, with your permission, we will drive out the dybbuk." (28)
The next morning, at the opening of act 4, the summoning of the deceased, Nissan ben Krayne, starts with the end of the dream mitigation ceremony. Reb Shimshon says three times, "I saw a good dream," and Rabbi Azriel and the two judges reply three times, "You saw a good dream." (29) Isaac Afik contends that the source of this version of the dream mitigation ceremony originated in a pagan ritual. It is popular and ceremonial, and the need for three people to repeat the same words or phrases strengthens the assumption that the source lay in various magical combinations that became substituted over the years by biblical phrases. (30)
The appearance of the other deceased, Chanan, as a dybbuk, is also associated with a dream. Leah, who will serve later as the body for his appearance, tells her old nanny, Freda: "I saw his grave in a dream. (Closes her eyes. To herself) And I saw him too ... And he told me all about himself, and asked me to invite him to the wedding...." (31)
After the dybbuk has entered Leah's body, there is yet another connection between its appearance and a dream. When it leaves Leah in the third and fourth acts, Ansky describes her as if she were awakening from sleep and a dream (32)--a condition that indicates ibur ra (a bad impregnation), which can happen during the time when a person is not awake. The dream also serves as one of the main ways for the creation of ibur tov (a good impregnation) in Judaism: a spirit of a holy man appearing in a dream can create a contact with the dreamer--for example, by kissing him or her and healing or conferring an ability that he or she had not had before. In such a way the spirit of the holy man adheres as a good impregnation to the soul of the dreamer. (33)
One important way of classifying Noh plays is according to the dramatic reality of the play. The plays can be subdivided into mugen no (dream and phantasm Noh) or genzai no (actual Noh). (34) Most of them are classified as mugen no in which the waki (deuteragonist), usually a traveler, visits a famous place where he encounters a local inhabitant, the shite (protagonist), and asks to be told the famous story associated with the place. At the end of all these stories the inhabitant traditionally declares, "I am in fact (or in reality) the hero of this tale," meaning that he is the reincarnation of the historical character. He exits the stage, and here the first half of the play comes to an end. The traveler pauses on his journey and sometimes falls asleep and begins to dream. After a short interlude in which another local character provides a more simplistic version of the story (performed by a Kyogen (35) actor), the performer who played the first inhabitant appears again, now as a ghost--but this time in the human form he had held in life and recounts his past experience through singing and dancing, which is the performative climax of the play. Finally day dawns and the ghost disappears. What has taken place has been the traveler's dream. For this reason these plays are called mugen, which implies a dream world. For example, in Izutsu, the second part--in which the ghost of the daughter of Ki no Aritsune relates past events through dance and chants, then disappears at dawn--actually occurs in the priest's dream, as the chorus sings at the end: "Also the dream is broken and he wakes, / The dream is broken and it dawns." (36) This pattern, comprising reality, dream, and reality--with the appearance of the ghost in its original form within the dream of the secondary character--is the most common two-part dream pattern in Noh. But sometimes this pattern is changed, and the dead spirit is summoned, directly or indirectly, through a dream. In Kiyotsune, the sleepless widow, wishing to see her husband if only in a dream, summons the ghost as the chorus chants. When his ghost appears, his wife says:
O wondrous marvel!
I see Kiyotsune by my pillow,
And yet I know that he has drowned himself.
How then can I behold him save in dream?
Even if it is a good dream or a reality'
Yet I am thankful
To see his figure once more. (37)
Contrasting Representations in the Main Character
The character of Leah in The Dybbuk presents vocal gender-based transitions as the dybbuk, entering and leaving her body, elaborately enriches this aspect of acting. These contrasting transitions are dichotomously molded in three parts of the play. After we have seen the very feminine Leah in the first two acts, Chanan's dybbuk abruptly enters her body at the end of act 2. Leah then gazes wildly around, screaming out in a masculine voice, which announces the existence of the dybbuk and completes the first half of the play. Until this moment she has embodied only feminine qualities. From this moment, the dybbuk is supposed to be constantly inside her. However, the tension between these two contrasting characteristics is effectively enhanced when Lean opens her appearance in act 3 with one short sentence performed as her feminine self: "Granny, I want to enter, but I can't." (38) She then immediately interrupts herself in a masculine shout: "I don't want to enter! I don't want to!" Throughout the whole confrontation with the dybbuk in this act, Leah appears possessed by it, and although it refuses to leave her, toward the end of the act the playwright "makes her sleepy" and she speaks only twice, weakly, in very short nonsuccessive phrases, between which she is led offstage. The stage directions for these two phrases are "awakens, in her own [feminine] voice" (39) and "awakens" (without reference to gender). (40) In this act, which is the second phase of Leah's appearance, the playwright frames the masculine characteristic of the dybbuk with the very feminine appearance of Leah. Her final words in act 3 as the awakening, feminine Leah--"I don't want! ... I don't want! ... I don't want!" (41)--are almost identical to the dybbuk's words at the beginning of this act: "(In the [masculine] dybbuk voice) I don't want to enter! I don't want to!" (42) This ploy emphasizes the dichotomous performance in this part of the play.
The special design of Leah's third dichotomous appearance, in act 4, comprises three stages in which she first appears as the dybbuk before going through the gradual metamorphosis into her feminine character, which concludes the play. Ansky designs Leah's appearance in the last act to contrast with her appearance in the previous one. At the beginning of act 3 her father and her old nanny appeal to her as "my daughter" when asking her to enter the room--a request that thereby elicits her tender feminine reaction, directed at the old nanny. This is designed to conceal momentarily the dybbuk's appearance, which is revealed only following an additional appeal by her father. In contrast, the summoning of the dybbuk at the beginning of act 4 is immediate through the direct appeal of Rabbi Azriel to Leah as a dybbuk: "Dybbuk! The time that I gave you is up. Will you willingly go out of the virgin Leah, Chana's daughter?" (43) Leah, as the dybbuk, refuses to obey him. After a short ritualistic fight, the dybbuk is vanquished, starts to weaken, and disappears. In contrast to the blurred transition from the masculine acting of the dybbuk to her feminine character in the previous act--which is suggested in the play only by the direction "awakens in her voice" (was she asleep on the stage, and if so when did she fall asleep?)--the final exit of the dybbuk is given an expressive and detailed portrayal that contrasts with its temporal exit in the previous act. Its gradual disappearance is indicated twice by the stage direction "The Dybbuk in a dying voice," and later its exit is detailed: "Leah removes from her place, utters a shout and falls on the bench." (44) After a while she opens her eyes as if awakening and continues in her feminine aspect until the end of the play.
The final act thus offers the full expression of the demonic male dybbuk and the gradual transition between genders until the reappearance of all the feminine elements of Leah's character that were shown in the first half of the play. A. Kugel, the finest theatrical critic in Russia at the time of the original Vakhtangov production of The Dybbuk, praised the acting of the legendary actress Chana Rovina (1889-1980), who had played the role of Leah in this production. (45) In particular, he applauded her vocal expression: "To merge two [different] voices into one in such a way as she does--is a fantastic technical achievement." (46)
Similarly, one of the most important elements in the acting of the main Noh actor is the combination of contrasting acting characteristics such as feminine/masculine or delicate/demonic in the two-part plays. In the first part the main actor performs a very delicate feminine character, and in the second half, after a change of mask and costume, he appears as a more threatening masculine being. The two-part dramatic structure also enables the actor to demonstrate his skill in performing two contrasting acting qualities within one play. Such contrasts stress the aesthetic tension between actor and character and enable a greater appreciation of acting as art. When the second part features the appearance of a demon, such as the serpent in Dojoji or the spider in Tsuchigumo (The Ground-Spider), the expression is solely visual, comprising the mask and costume combined with very masculine movements. When such creatures fight with religious figures or warriors, they do not usually speak or sing in this part of the play. If the main character of the second part is a demonic manifestation of a human being, however, contrasting vocal expressions are also added.
The vocal music in Noh comprises two distinctive modes: utai (chanting) and kotoba (words, or speech). These modes are based upon contrasting gender distinctions. The chanting has two contrasting types--a more melodic feminine type, yowagin (weak chanting), and a dynamic masculine type, tsuyogin (strong chanting)--which are used to emphasize dramatic contrasts between situations, moments, or characters. Therefore, in two-part plays in which there is a transition, the first part usually involves the melodic feminine yowagin chanting and the second part either solely the dynamic masculine tsuyogin chanting or both modes. For example, in the first part of Aoi no Ue, the main character of Rokujo uses only yowagin, (47) whereas in the second part the actor, as a demonic living spirit, uses only tsuyogin. (48) In some plays these contrasting modes create a more complicated structure. For example, in the fourth-category play Kanawa (The Iron Crown), a deserted woman seeks revenge on her former husband and his new wife by becoming a demon. The contrasting modes of chanting create two different aspects of the character. Yowagin expresses the woman's pain and helplessness in the first half of the play, (49) while in the second half, in which the woman is invested with demonic features, yowagin is mingled with tsuyogin to express both her pain and her hatred. (50) The speech intonations, which are also based upon gender distinction, comprise a rich complexity created by the juxtaposition of male and female characteristics in the context of character type and dramatic situation. (51)
Ritualistic Struggle and Vanquishing a Demonic Being
The climactic struggle with the dybbuk and with the demonic being in Noh (and in the Kabuki adaptations of these Noh plays) is in each case constructed through the use of similar ritualistic and verbal elements. The religious figures who perform these rites in Noh and in The Dybbuk wear religious items that bear resemblance to each other. In many such Noh plays this figure is a yamabushi, a mountain ascetic, who appears alone or with several companions. Onstage the yamabushi wears a characteristic costume incorporating two additional religious items. On his forehead, he wears a small black pillbox-shaped hat (tokin), which is secured around his chin or ears with a thick white braided cord; above his outer kimono four white linen pompons (suzu kake) hang over his chest, with two more, suggesting a prayer shawl, at the center of his back. To summon up the dead spirit of Chanan's father as the first stage of the exorcism, Rabbi Azriel wears two phylacteries (tefillin), one bound to the forehead and the other to the left hand; and a prayer shawl (talith) over the upper part of his body, comprising a white cloth with black stripes at its two ends. These costume elements of the central religious figure are enhanced for the main stage of the exorcism. Rabbi Azriel takes off his phylacteries and prayer shawl while seven of his followers put on or carry items with similar symbols, though larger and more numerous. Seven scrolls of the Torah, which have previously been taken out of the Holy Ark, are now carried by seven of Rabbi Azriel's followers, who wear white robes and hold black candles, comprising the same black-and-white combination.
The rites in both cases are accompanied by an audible religious item. The yamabushi carries a Buddhist rosary (juzu) wound around his left wrist--a circlet of wooden beads that are rolled between the palms of the hands. The rustling during the invocation and adjuring creates a sound, but the action itself has an impressive visual impact, especially when several yamabushi confront the demonic being, their legs astride, stamping their weight back and forth from one leg to the other during the rustling. In The Dybbuk the followers of Rabbi Azriel blow seven rams' horns (shofaroth) during the exorcism rite, though normally only a soloist plays this musical instrument during certain prayers. The very expressive sound effect of seven such horns and the additional visual effect of the seven people who are blowing them contribute to the performative aspect in a way analogous to the visual effect of the several yamabushi manipulating their rosaries.
The expelling of the dybbuk and of the demonic being in Noh also utilizes religious texts. In addition to the adjuring, excommunication, warning, and so on, Rabbi Azriel quotes from the Torah to recruit God's power against the dybbuk. Similarly, the religious figures in Noh make extensive use of various sutras, mainly in Sanskrit, in addition to the exorcizing text itself.
Holy and Transitional Location
The subtitle to The Dybbuk, "Between Two Worlds" (originally the main title)--together with the theme song on the wandering soul that opens and concludes the play, and the plot and its various interpretations--attributes to the play a transitional dimension that requires a specific location. The play has three sets of scenery: the interior of an old wooden synagogue, which serves mainly as background and to provide a sense of sanctity (act 1); a town square surrounded by the synagogue and other houses, with an old gravestone on a mound of earth that serves as a focal turning point (act 2); and a large room in the home of Rabbi Azriel, in which the main action of the play--the struggle with the dybbuk, the rabbinical trial, and the denouement--takes place (acts 3 and 4). However, within these locations the old and holy grave stands out, since it serves as the most meaningful location in the play, against which the main turning point takes place.
The old synagogue, functioning as the location for the first act and serving as a theme, creates a sense of holiness and eternity (fig. 1). Leah and her old nanny talk about its age, and Freda says that nobody knows when it was built. The building was all that remained after fires had destroyed the other structures surrounding it. Even when fire attacked its roof, nature interfered: pigeons arrived and flew around until the flapping of their wings put out the flames. Both the main characters have some relation to the holy items in the synagogue. Chanan looks at the open Holy Ark and describes the Scrolls of the Torah; Leah asks to be shown the old curtains of the Holy Ark, and, deeply impressed, she touches them passionately.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
The old grave appears at the beginning of act 2, immediately after Chanan's death at the end of act 1. A guest sees the gravestone, which reads: "Here are buried the holy and pure bride and groom who were martyred for their faith in God in the year 5408 [C.E. 1648]." (52) One of the Batlanim explains the unusual grave's contiguity to the synagogue:
When that villain Chmielnicki, may his name be erased, assaulted our burgh
and slaughtered Jews, he killed a bride and groom during their wedding
under the canopy. They were buried here, on the very spot where they had
been murdered, inside the synagogue itself. Both together in a single
grave, as done for saints, and everybody calls it "the holy grave." (In a
whisper, as if revealing a secret) And until today, each time that the
Rabbi conducts a wedding ceremony at the synagogue, a sigh is heard coming
from the grave. And it has been our custom to come right after the wedding
to dance around the grave, to cheer the buried groom and bride. (53)
A dialectical attitude is shown toward this grave during act 2. When Leah talks about dead spirits with Freda, she approaches the grave and repeats the story with great empathy for the pair of lovers, whom she says she has seen many times, and she invites them to come to her wedding. Later, Leah's designated groom, Menashe, and his rabbi react very differently to Leah's detailed verbal and empathic response. Menashe sees the grave, retreats, and says, "Rabbi, what is this? A grave in the middle of the town?" (54) They discreetly read the inscription on the grave and remain silent with bowed heads.
At the end of this act the grave functions as a transitional point between the historic couple and the contemporary one (Leah and Chanan). It also acts as the location where the dead character (dybbuk) is transformed into the live character, with the union embodied by the grave itself. When Menashe approaches Leah to put the bridal veil over her face, she pushes him away and shouts: "You are not my groom!" Then she runs to the holy grave and, falling upon it, begs the couple for help. It is now that the dybbuk is revealed. S/he cries: "A-a! You buried me, and now I come back to my spouse and I will not leave her again." When the groom's father approaches her, she associates him--and thereby herself, too--with the historic couple as she shouts at him: "Chmielyuk!!!" This identifies the historic villain, and at this point the Messenger announces that a "dybbuk has entered the bride." (55) Thus ends the first half of the play.
The second half of the play takes place at another religiously associated location: a large room in the home of Rabbi Azriel, who serves both to requite the restless and suffering dead spirit and to vanquish the dybbuk. The place is arranged gradually and accumulatively for these ritualistic purposes. In act 3, before the rite of expulsion, this is merely a private home (fig. 2). When the curtain rises at the beginning of act 4, a round table with chairs around it has replaced the long table and benches that had been located along the left-side wall in the previous act. The change in shape and location of this main prop creates the space for the struggle with the demonic being. Two additional contrasting elements are employed for the appearance of the two dead spirits, Chanan and his father. After Rabbi Azriel's command to summon up the dead spirit of Nissan, two Hasidim (religious followers) bring a bed sheet, fasten it to the ceiling, and drape it across the left corner. Behind this Noh-like prop the ghost later appears unseen and heard only through the medium. The second ghost, Chanan, is first heard for a while and then appears through a very unusual and dynamic scenic device. At the end of the play he suddenly appears in the wall without any preparation, in a manner quite similar to the Kabuki technique for superhuman characters, who emerge from a stage trap door called the suppon (snapping-turtle), located on the hanamichi.
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
Whereas in The Dybbuk these three locations appear successively, all their characteristics are permanently represented in the Noh space (fig. 3). The back wall of the traditional Noh stage displays a single painted old and twisted pine tree. The painting of the pine tree is a representation of the famed Yogo pine at the Kasuga Shrine in Nara, where Noh has been performed outdoors for centuries. The main performers enter the stage through a bridge (hashigakari) to upstage right. In front of the bridge three small straight young pine trees are set. These pine trees represent sanctity and longevity in Japanese Buddhism. (56) There is also a painting of bamboo canes on the upstage left wall. These two contrasting paintings--old and young, twisted and straight--give the Noh space a symbolic ideal of longevity, sanctity, and harmony. Above the stage and the bridge there is a roof of the same sacred architectural design as that of shrines, a factor which also imbues the performing space with a certain sanctity. This sacred aura of the Noh space bears resemblance to that of the old synagogue in The Dybbuk.
[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]
The dramatic location is very important in Noh since it is usually connected with the main character around whom the drama is centered. In many plays the stage remains empty and the performance takes place on the same empty sacred space. But sometimes a large prop (tsukuri mono) functions as the visual focus of the dramatic place or of the event portrayed in the play. This prop is brought to the empty stage after the beginning of the performance and is removed before the end in the presence of the spectators as part of the performance. In Izutsu the priest meets the woman beside the grave of the poet Narihira. At the beginning of the performance a prop symbolizing a wooden well rim with a sheaf of susuki grass at one corner is brought onto the stage by stage attendants (koken). This prop represents the well into which the main character, the Daughter of Ki no Aritsune, looked together with her lover during their childhood to see their united image reflected in the water. They had since grown up and married, but had several crises, especially because of the husband's passionate nature, which had led him to spend nights with other women. Eventually they returned to live happily together until his death. The ghost of the wife now haunts his grave and offers flowers to the poet's memory--a suggestion of the eternity of love. The location of the play is the old wooden well rim half hidden by susuki grass beside the poet's grave. This place that symbolizes both their pure love during childhood and the resting place of her dead lover serves as a transitional point for the metamorphosis of the present character's incarnation as the historic dead character. After the interlude, the ghost appears wearing her dead husband's hat and garment. She therefore actually represents the two dead characters of the past as one individual.
Since graves also connect the main theme (of ghostly appearance as a transitional point between life and death), they themselves can function as the tsukuri mono. In the play Sumidagawa (The Sumida River), a woman, whose mind became unbalanced after her son's kidnapping, finally arrives at his grave. Together with a ferryman who reveals her son's fate and takes her to the grave, she prays at the grave, and the boy's voice is heard. After she prays again, the ghost of the dead child appears (fig. 4), but when she tries to reach out to him, he is no longer there. Dawn breaks and the boy's spirit vanishes forever. Before the beginning of the performance, a tsukuri mono (a framed mound representing a grave) is brought in by the koken from behind the curtain and placed center backstage. The child actor (kokata) who plays the boy moves inside the large prop and stays there until his apprearance. This prop is present onstage all the time, even when the action occurs in a different location, and conventionally the actors will disregard it until the appropriate time. It becomes the main visual image in the play, as in the case of the holy grave in The Dybbuk.
The last stage of the ritualistic struggle with the demonic being and its vanquishing in Noh plays--comparable to acts 3 and 4 in The Dybbuk--is located in a similar religious and functional location to the third set in The Dybbuk. This is the same permanent religious space of the Noh stage, which is sometimes combined with a special prop such as the big bell in Dojoji or the folded kimono in Aoi no Ue. In such a way all the characteristics of the three locations that appear successively in The Dybbuk are permanently represented and function in the Noh space.
"Between Two Worlds"
My discussion of the dramatic treatment of various aspects in The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds, and the Japanese Noh and Kabuki ghost plays reveals common beliefs, meanings, and structures and shows the profusion of motifs and elements shared in the richness and complexity of The Dybbuk and in Noh and Kabuki plays. Whereas The Dybbuk is a singular Western play without any Jewish theatrical tradition from which to draw for its production, Noh and Kabuki are more than merely dramatic forms. These Japanese traditional theaters are based on ritualistic roots and philosophy, developed theatrical spaces, and elaborate acting aesthetic and techniques that have been crystallized through a tradition of acting passed from generation to generation over hundreds of years. These traditional theaters, and especially Noh, which at first glance might seem as remote from Jewish theater as East from West, have much to offer for a new directing conception of a modern production of The Dybbuk. It provides a link, not existing in Judaism, between beliefs that were transformed into rites and the ritualistic characteristics of a theatrical form that perhaps surprisingly includes similar dramatic and theatrical aspects to those in The Dybbuk.
Tel Aviv University
NOTES
Unless otherwise stated, all translations are the author's. Japanese names in the essay are given in Japanese order: family name first.
(1) The spelling of the author's name appears differently in various sources. In the Hebrew on the title page of Ansky's complete works, his name appears as S. Ansky. In the Russian the name appears with a dash as S. An-Sky or S. An-sky. In more recent research projects including the English translation of his writings, the author's name is shown as S. Ansky. As a matter of consistency, I chose the latter for my essay.
(2) For Vakhtangov's production, see Pearl Fishman, "Vakhtangov's The Dybbuk" The Drama Review 24, no. 3 (1980), 43-58.
(3) On this synthesis and its implications on the performing styles, see H. E. Plutschow, Chaos and Cosmos: Ritual in Early and Medieval Japanese Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), 145-57.
(4) For the perception of dead spirits and their treatment in Japan, see Matsudaira Narimitsu, "The Concept of Tamashii in Japan," in Studies in Japanese Folklore, ed. Richard M. Dorson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963), 181-97.
(5) Carmen Blacker, The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1975), 304-05.
(6) I Samuel, 28:7-20 [Hebrew].
(7) Mordechai Margaliyoth, ed., Sefer Ha'razim (hu sefer keshafim mitkufath ha'talmud) ["Book of the Secrets" (A Sorcery Book from the Talmud Period)] (Jerusalem: Yehuda Leab and Mini Epstein Foundation, 1967), 76-77 [Hebrew].
(8) Gershom Scholem, Pirkei yesod be'havanath ha'cabala u'smalyeah [Elements of the Cabala and its Symbolism] (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1976), 331-32 [Hebrew].
(9) Gedalyah Nigal, Sipurei dybbuk be'sifruth israel ["Dybbuk" Tales in Jewish Literature] (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1994), 11-60 [Hebrew].
(10) Various elements in The Dybbuk, mainly according to Cabalistic concepts (and also according to some other Jewish and Christian sources), are analyzed by Robert Lima, "Rite of Passage: Metempsychosis, Possession, and Exorcism in S. An-Sky's The Dybbuk," in Literature and the Occult: Essays in Comparative Literature, ed. Luanne Frank. (Arlington: University of Texas, 1977), 188-204.
(11) For analysis of this aspect, see Jacob Raz, "Chinkon--From Folk Beliefs to Stage Conventions: Certain Recurring Folkloristic Elements in Japanese Theater," Maske und Kothurn 27, no.1 (1981), 12-18.
(12) For detailed classification, see Nishino Haruo and Hata Hisashi, Nokyogen jiten [Encyclopedia of Noh and Kyogen] (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1987), 273 [Japanese]; and Oda Yukiko, "Hajimete nogakudo o otozureru hito e" [For Beginner Spectators of Noh], in No--Bessatsu "Taiyo" [Noh--A Separate Volume of "Sun"] 25 (winter 1978): 186 [Japanese].
(13) Konparu Kunio, No e no izanai: jo-ha-kyu to ma no saiensu [Invitation to the Noh: The Science of jo-ha-kyu and ma (pause)] (Kyoto: Tankosha, 1980), 36-40 [Japanese].
(14) In the second of the Ten Commandments, the Jewish people are forbidden to create any sculpture or picture since these may perceived as creating idols (Exod. 20:4); and, the heretical golden calf created by the Jews in the desert was called the "calf of the mask" (Exod. 32:8). In addition to the Jewish desire to be distinguished from the Greeks, Romans, and later the European Christians, all of whom had conducted various kinds of theaters, the Jewish people not only deliberately ignored theater but also strongly opposed this art that created a rival to their religion. Theater, like ritual, creates an alternative reality through gesture and word, and was therefore perceived by the Jews as abandoning the one God, a jealous God who demanded total devotion. Therefore the struggle between Judaism and theater has been one for the exclusivity of a religious worldview. See Shimon Levy, Mekatrim Ba'bamoth [The Altar and the Stage] (Israel: Or-Am, 1992), 7-10 [Hebrew].
(15) Cited in Shmuel Verses, "Bein shnei olamoth (ha'dybbuk) le Shin. Ansky be'gilgulav ha'textualim" [Between Two Worlds (The Dybbuk) by S. Ansky in its textual metamorphosis] Ha'sifruth [The Literature] 34-35 (summer 1986), 162 [Hebrew].
(16) The idea is presented by the idlers who, coming out from the feast for the poor, declare that a person who looks like a pauper could be someone else entirely, such as a holy person; and Meir adds: "And perhaps even Elijah the Prophet.... As it is known, he always comes disguised as a pauper"--S. Ansky, Ha'dibbuk (Bein Shnei Olamoth) [The Dybbuk (Between Two Worlds)], trans. Chaim Nachman Biyalik (Israel: Or-Am, 1983), 32 [Hebrew].
(17) Ibid., 38.
(18) Ibid., 7, 8, 71.
(19) Ibid., 36.
(20) Ibid., 37-38.
(21) Ibid., 36.
(22) Ibid., 15.
(23) Ibid., 26.
(24) Ibid., 70-71.
(25) Toita Yasuji, ed., Kabuki meisakusen [Selection of Famous Kabuki Pieces], 15 vols. (Osaka and Tokyo: Sogensha, 1957), 6:86 [Japanese].
(26) Ibid., 14:58-62.
(27) Ansky, Ha'dibbuk, 56.
(28) Ibid.
(29) Ibid., 58.
(30) Issac Afik (Abecasssis), "Tfisath ha'chalom etsel chazal ve'hashlachoteia" ["HAZAL's Perception of the Dream and its Consequence"], M.A. thesis (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 1981), 64-65 [Hebrew].
(31) Ansky, Ha'dibbuk, 39.
(32) Ibid., 55, 57, 68.
(33) Howard Schwartz, "Spirit Possession in Judaism," Parabola 19 (1994), 74.
(34) Yokomichi Mario and Omote Akira. Yokyoku-shu [Collection of Noh Plays], pt. 1: Nihon koten bungaku taikei [Collections of Japanese Classical Literature], 40 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1960), 7-10 [Japanese].
(35) Kyogen is a comical theater style complementing the more serious Noh, and independent Kyogen plays are performed between Noh plays. The Kyogen actor also performs in the interval between the two parts of the Noh play if there is an interval, and he sometimes also performs a minor part in the Noh play itself.
(36) Yokomichi and Omote, Yokyoku-shu, 1:279.
(37) Ibid., 253.
(38) Ansky, Ha'dibbuk, 52.
(39) Ibid., 55.
(40) Ibid., 57.
(41) Ibid.
(42) Ibid., 52.
(43) Ibid., 65.
(44) Ibid., 66-67.
(45) Chana Rovina toured with the company in the United States and then went to Palestine, where she became the "mother of the Israeli theater." She continued to play this role until the 1950s at Ha'bima.
(46) A. Kugel, Jizn i Iskustvo [Life and Art] (Petrograd, 25 June 1923) [Russian]; translated and cited in Shimon Finkel, Chana Rovina: monographya al reka zichronoth [Chana Rovina: A Monograph Based on Memories] (Tel Aviv: Eked, 1978), 49 [Hebrew].
(47) Kanze Sakon (24), Kanze ryu yokyoku hyakuban shu [Collection of One Hundred Chanting Books of the Noh Plays of the Kanze School] (Tokyo: Hinoki shoten, 1982), 342-47 [Japanese].
(48) Ibid., 349-50.
(49) Ibid., 1184-88.
(50) Ibid., 1191-94.
(51) For detailed analysis, see Zvika Serper, "Kotoba (`Sung' Speech) in Japanese No Theater: Gender Distinctions in Structure and Performance," Asian Music 31, no. 2 (2000): 129-66.
(52) Ansky, Ha'dibbuk, 31.
(53) Ibid.
(54) Ibid., 41.
(55) Ibid., 43.
(56) Ishii Mikiko, "The Noh Theater: Mirror, Mask, and Madness," Comparative Drama 28, no. 1 (1994): 54.