The plays take older Nō plots or traditional and foreign fairy tales and bring them to a modern setting.
Famed Japan scholar Donald Keene translated Five Modern Noh Plays.
[2] A poet meets Komachi, a repulsive-looking old woman, at a Tokyo park at night.
The poet realizes that she is still beautiful, and sees past her ragged clothes and wretched body.
A youth who sees no meaning in anything, wonders what will happen if he sleeps on a magical pillow which makes the dreamer realize what he already understands, the futility of existence.