Korean dramatic art, if it is at all akin with the dramatic art of Europe, approaches most nearly the art methods of the high-class music halls, and the best French variety theatres. Every Korean actor is a star, superior to, indifferent to, and independent of scenery.
More often than not, the Korean actor is not only the star, but the entire company. He plays everything—old men, juveniles, low comedians and high tragedians, leading ladies, ingénueux, and rough soubrettes—plays them with little or no change of costume, plays them in quick succession, and wholly without aid of scenery. And very clever, indeed, he is to do it. Closely allied as all the three great peoples of the far Orient are in their amusements, the amusements of the Koreans resemble the amusements of China very much more than they do the amusements of Japan; and yet Korean acting is very much more like Japanese than like Chinese acting. This is especially worthy of note, I think, because in every nation in the world, the theatrical is the highest form of amusement.
Korean acting would come, perhaps, more properly under the heading of Korean art than under the head of Korean amusements, or quite as appropriately, perhaps, under the head of Korean religion. For in Korea, as in every other country, acting is not only an exquisite, and one of the highest expressions of a nation’s intellectuality, but is the child, almost the first-born child, of that country’s religion. It is, perhaps, because Korea has ceased to have a religion that Korea has no theatre, at least, no permanent theatre. The Korean actor gives his performance on the bare paper floor of some rich man’s banqueting hall, or at the street corner. The actors of Japan are surrounded with every possible accessory, and with the perfection of accessories. The most faultless stage setting I ever saw, the utmost nicety of properties that I ever saw, and the best trained supers I ever saw, I saw on the stage of a Tokio theatre. The Korean actor has no stage setting, he has no properties, and he never heard of supernumeraries. His theatre—for, after all, I am inclined to withdraw what I said, and to maintain that wherever an artist acts there is a theatre—his theatre consists of a mat beneath his feet, and a mat over his head, and four perpendicular poles separating the two mats. And yet the Korean actor shares very largely the polish, the definiteness of method, and the convincing artisticness of the Japanese actor. If religion had flourished in Korea as it has flourished in Japan, it is probable that, under the sheltering patronage of religion, Korean acting would now equal, if not excel, the best acting of Japan. As it is, the Korean actor is remarkable for his versatility, for his mastery of his own voice, his mastery of facial expression, and his comprehension of, and his reproducing of, every human emotion. A Korean actor will often give an uninterrupted performance of some hours length. He will recite page after page of vivid Korean history; he will chant folk-songs; he will repeat old legends and romances, and he will give Punch and Judy-like exhibitions of connubial infelicity and of all the other ills that Korean flesh is heir to. And he will intersperse this dramatic kaleidoscope with orchestral music of his own producing. Perhaps he has pitched his theatre of mats in the full heat of the noon-day sun, but even so, he only pauses to take big, quick drinks of peppery water, or of a very light, rice wine, in which good-sized lumps of hot ginger float. If the actor is performing at a feast of some mandarin or other wealthy Korean, he is, of course, paid by an individual employer; and the audience which has, in all probability, been amply dined and amply wined, sit near him, sit at their ease, and in an irregular semicircle. If the performance is given in the street, it is purely a speculation on the part of the actor. The audience sit about on queer little wooden benches, or squat on mats, or stand. And when the actor knows (and this is something which an actor always does know, the acting-world over) that he has struck the high-water mark of his momentary possible histrionic ability, he pauses abruptly and collects such cash as his audience can or will spare. The result is usually very gratifying to the actor. The audience want to see the play out, and the player won’t play on until he is paid. A street audience appreciates the play highly, appreciates it none the less, perhaps, because it—the audience—eats and drinks from the first scene until the last. It is an interesting sight to see in front of the temporary temple of a Korean actor a concourse of men with eyes a-stark with pleasure, and faces a-bulge with refreshment, but it is a sight which is not too open to the criticism of the people in whose own theatres ices and coffees and sweetmeats are hawked about between the acts. It always seems to me that we insult art grossly when we tacitly admit that we cannot sit through a fine dramatic performance without the stimulant of meat or of drink. The Japanese also eat between the acts, but then they have the excuse of sitting through performances that are sometimes twelve hours long. We lack that excuse in Europe. And though the Koreans munch and sip through the intensest moments of a Korean theatrical exhibition, no dramatic performance in Korea lasts, unless I mistake, for more than three, or at the utmost, four hours. A Korean actor, to attain to any eminence in his profession, must be able to improvise, and probably in no Eastern country, certainly in no Western country, is the art of improvising carried to so high a degree of perfection as it is in Korea. The Korean actor also approaches somewhat to the Anglo-Saxon clown. He must be quick with cheap witticisms, glib jests, and jokes that would be coarse if they were not above all stupid. He must be ready with topical quips, for the Korean crowd will have its laugh, or it won’t pay. This branch of his trade he is seldom called upon to ply when he performs at private entertainments.
The Chinese, the Japanese, and the Koreans are all inveterate picnickers. They are all intensely fond of Nature, and of feasting out of doors. All three of these peoples take the greatest delight in tobacco. Opium is smoked in Korea more than in Japan, but far less than in China. But all the Koreans, whatever their age, whatever their station, whatever their sex, smoke tobacco almost as perpetually as do the Burmese. The Koreans use a pipe, of which the bowl is so small that it only holds a pinch or two of tobacco, and the stem of which is so long that it is almost impossible to light one’s own pipe. When not in use, a gentleman’s pipe is carried in his sleeve, or tucked into his girdle. The labouring man or the coolie usually thrusts his down his neck between his coat and his back. All three of these peoples are great patrons of professional story-tellers, and of magicians. The Japanese excel the others in magic, and the Koreans excel in story-telling.
It is a favourite pastime both in Japan and Korea to watch trained dancers. There is no dancing in China.
In Korea fights are the occasions of great national joy. In Japan skilful wrestlers and fencers give really artistic exhibitions, but never carry them to the point of brutality. But in Korea a fight is a real fight. Blow follows blow; limbs are bruised, dislocated, and broken. During the first month of the year it is legal, and is the height of Korean good form, to indulge in as many fights as possible. Antagonistic guilds, numbering hundreds of men, face each other at some convenient and appointed spot, and in the sight of thousands of enthusiastic spectators, fight out an entire year’s debt of envy and hatred. Men engage in the roughest of personal combat; men who during the other eleven months of the year scarcely fight upon the gravest provocation. A considerable fight between two Korean women of the poorest class is not unknown, and some of them fight extremely well. Mothers often devote considerable time training their small sons in the art of defence, and of fisty attack. Every Korean town, almost every Korean village, has a champion fighter. Prize-fights are to Korea what the race-course is to Europe and to Anglo-Asia. The spectators bet until they have nothing left to bet with, and then very often start an amateur fight of their own. Korean gentlemen do not as a rule fight, nor are they apt to attend a public fight. They often, however, go to very great expense in engaging professionals to give private exhibitions of their prowess. There is one rather comical side to a Korean fight. Every Korean wears an abundance of big clothing, and the antagonists never dream of disrobing in the least. And so two fighting Koreans, from a little distance, look as much like two fighting feather beds as anything else. Debt is said to be the cause of nine out of ten of the fights that are not exhibitions of skill. In Korea, as in China, it is a great disgrace not to pay all your debts on, or before the New Year; and any Korean who fails to do so is very apt to find himself involved in a pugilistic reckoning. Club fights and stone fights are very common. When a stone fight is proposed the friends or admirers of the combatants spend some hours in collecting two mounds of small rough stones. Then the battle begins, and it is a battle. Sometimes it is a duel, and sometimes fifty or even a hundred take an active part in it, pelting each other as rapidly and as roughly as possible.
But the most important, and the most popular of all amusements in Korea is that of eating and drinking. Intemperance, I fear, is very common, and is so little condemned by public opinion that it is quite as much a national recreation as a national vice, but it is seldom or never indulged in by women, and even the geisha girls are sobriety itself. The Koreans drink everything and anything of an intoxicating kind that they can get. They are improving, however, in this respect, of late years. Japanese beer is somewhat displacing the heavier rice liquors, and among the very wealthiest people both claret and champagne are popular. But the Koreans eat as much as ever they did, and no other people extract so much genuine enjoyment from eating. The Koreans season their food more highly, and use more chillies, more mustard than any other people in Asia. They are very fond of the taro, a smooth, small, sweet potato. They devour sea-weed by the pound, and eat lily-bulbs by the bushel. Here is the mênu of a very elegant Korean dinner:—
Boiled pork with rice wine.
Macaroni soup.
Chicken with millet wine.