"Through an extended reading of the noh play Aoi ne Ue, as well as briefer examinations of several other plays, Theatricalities of Power sheds new light on the circulation of power and desire in the middle and late medieval period in Japan. The author argues that, rather than simply mirroring the sociopolitical contexts in which they were performed, these plays constituted an active, productive force in the theater of the medieval cultural imaginary by engaging specific sociopolitical issues and problems. The author approaches noh as a site of conflict framed by the mechanisms of patronage within which poetic, religious, political, and economic discourses are brought together in complex and innovative ways. He brings to the fore the 'micropolitics of culture' operative in noh by highlighting the power relations and tensions at play between noh texts and their institutions of support." -- Publisher description.