A NO-DANCE.
The same no-dance is seldom repeated in a run. The programme is changed every day, because popular as the no is in a sense, its patrons are yet too few to justify a run of the same dance. For a larger public we must turn to the drama. The play is in Japan as in other countries the most popular public amusement; but in few other lands is playgoing such an elaborate diversion as it is with us. In the old days the theatre opened early in the morning and did not close until nearly midnight; but some twenty years ago the police authorities limited the length of a performance to eight hours, and now it lasts from six to nine hours. In some theatres the doors open at four in the afternoon and close at ten or eleven; this allows a professional man to hurry to the theatre as soon as his office-hours are over and witness a performance in half an hour or so from its commencement; but other houses open at twelve or one and close at nine or ten. Playgoing was in the old times a whole day’s work, and women would prepare for it days beforehand and often lie awake the preceding night so as not to be late for the opening hour. They took their meals at the tea-houses, which are even now attached to the theatres, especially the larger ones. Through these tea-houses people book their seats in the theatre; and they go there first to divest themselves of unnecessary paraphernalia before entering the play-house and are thence provided with meals and refreshments which they take while looking at the performance. It is therefore to the interest of these tea-houses that the performance should be going on at meal-time. Those who cannot afford to visit a tea-house go direct to the theatre and are similarly looked after, except in the case of those in the cheapest seats, by attendants detailed for the purpose. In fact, eating and drinking is inseparable from playgoing in Japan. People eat and drink while looking at a performance; some even cannot enjoy it unless they are regaled at the same time with sake. Playgoing is, in short, an expensive pastime in Japan.
THE ENTRANCE OF A THEATRE.
THE STAGE AND ENTRANCE-PASSAGE.
The theatre is a large oblong building. Over the great entrance hangs a row of wooden-framed pictures representing the scenes played; the side-entrances lead to the gallery. In front of the stage as one enters the theatre is the pit, which is partitioned into small compartments capable of holding four or five persons squatting. On either side are two stories of boxes and facing the stage across the pit is the gallery on the second or third story, which is mostly patronised by playgoers who, being unable to pay for the whole performance, come to see one or two of the best acts. From the sides of the stage two entrance-passages run through the pit towards the entrance. Actors walk under the passages to the entrance end and coming out into a box, make their appearance on the entrance-passage. These passages are very convenient as they give a larger room to the stage and impart a sense of distance when it is not expedient to crowd too suddenly on the stage. The stage is screened off from the auditorium by a drawn curtain in the larger theatres and by a drop-curtain in some of the smaller. When a popular actor is playing or some special piece is performing, curtains are presented by the patrons of the actor or the theatre; and in such a case several curtains are drawn one after another between the acts across the stage for the admiration of the audience. Another peculiarity of the Japanese stage is the revolving-stage. A scene is set upon the front half of a turn-table which is flush with the rest of the stage floor; and while that scene is being acted, the carpenters are putting up the next in the rear half; and when the first scene is over, the table revolves and brings the second to view, and so the play is continued without interruption. Yet another peculiarity is the presence on the stage of black-veiled men in clothes of the same colour. They are known as “blackamoors” and supposed to be invisible. At the commencement of a run; they stand or sit behind the actors and prompt them; they remove from the stage any article that has ceased to be of use or pull away the dead in a fight if they are found to be in the way, or push a cushion to an actor when he is about to sit down. They are of great use, though it is hard to acquiesce in the fiction of their invisibility. The stage music is played usually on one side of the stage; but when a gidayu is required, its performers are seated on a high perch to the left of the stage.
THE REVOLVING-STAGE.
Only in rare cases is the day’s performance taken up by a single play. The usual course is to have two plays, the first being of an historical character or concerned with disturbances in a daimyo’s family, and the second being a domestic play. For the Japanese drama is divided into three classes, the first being the historical drama, which deals with the times of war, most frequently in the twelfth, fourteenth, and sixteenth centuries, that is, the periods of the feuds which led to the establishment of the Shogunate, of the insurrections which resulted in the temporary rule of the country by two lines of Emperors, and of the ascendancy of the Taiko and Tokugawa Iyeyasu; the second treats of what are known as disturbances in noble families, the most common cause of which was the struggle for succession between the rightful heir and an illegitimate child of a daimyo; and lastly, the domestic drama depicts scenes in the lives of the common people, the favourite heroes and heroines of which were in the old days chivalrous gamblers, magnanimous robbers, and self-sacrificing courtesans. Of late, however, the domestic drama has greatly extended its scope, for now it presents pictures of modern life in reputable society. Then, two plays are acted in a performance, and there is not unfrequently a middle piece or an after-piece, or both, and such a piece presents a bright and gay scene with dancing in it. Thus, a performance is made to suit all tastes. This rule of two plays is not always adhered to; it is frequently disregarded by the new school of actors, who give only one play with an after-piece. We give a gay after-piece to relieve the strain of witnessing a serious and often tragic play, a curious contrast to the European lever de rideau which allows the playgoer to dine without hurry.