THE GIANT LANTERN
I was talking to Fukuchi about realism on the stage, and he told me of the horror they have in Japan of bringing live animals into a play; such a thing has been attempted on one or two occasions, but always with disastrous results. One enterprising actor, he told me, spent much time in training a horse to take part in a very fine production at one of the principal theatres. The horse was trained to perfection, and on the first night that it appeared, being a novelty, it was loudly applauded; but the lights and the confusion so terrified the poor animal that it sat down on the stage and refused to move. Yet again another actor, determined to outdo this former performance in originality, trained a live monkey to take the place of the decorative pasteboard monkey which had always been used on the stage. This animal, unlike the horse, was trained to know the stage as well as his master’s room, and grew quite accustomed to the lights and the people surrounding him. So thoroughly at home was this monkey that on its first appearance it swept the stage of all the actors, caused confusion and distress among the audience—in short, it behaved abominably, and did everything but that which it had been so carefully trained to do. After this the pasteboard monkey reigned supreme.
Mr. Fukuchi, although he is a brilliant English scholar and has an intense admiration for Shakspeare’s works, thoroughly realises how impossible it would be to attempt to put Hamlet on the Japanese stage: it would suit neither the actors nor the public.
THE LIVING ART