When We Were Strolling Players in the East

by Louise Jordan Miln

I long to tell how we did not play before the Mikado. But there must be limits to a chapter, even when it is written by a woman; and I must squeeze the story of nights of plotting and days of diplomacy into a page.

We were ambitious to play the Merchant of Venice before his Majesty and his Court. We brought to bear influence that we thought not inconsiderable, but we failed. We might, perhaps, have succeeded had it not been for the mad coolie who tried to kill the Tsarevitch. That struck a deathblow to our hope, and we missed the privilege we craved of unfurling the banner we loved, the pennant of great English drama, in the palace of the Mikado. But we tried very hard, and to our persistence I, at least, owe many of my happiest memories. “All successes rise phœnix-like from the ashes of some failure.” We failed to play before the Mikado,—but to that failure I owe the two most unique experiences I had in Japan.

One was a jinrickshaw ride from Yokohama to Tokio, the other was a performance of Julius Cæsar that we gave in a Japanese theatre to a Japanese audience. Not an audience of cosmopolitanised Japanese, but an audience of the insular Japanese populace. That was the funnier experience; the other was the more enjoyable.

As a matter of fact, we played twice in the Japanese theatre; once in the afternoon, once in the evening. Our auditors sat on benches—very low benches—and squatted on the auditorium floor. They behaved better than we did, for we laughed when we should have been tragic. I was sorry at the time for my individual misconduct. I had not been guilty of inappropriate laughter on the stage since the first season of my professional life. But they were so irresistibly funny, those hundreds of gaping, kimonoed humans. Many of them, very many, were women. Every woman seemed to have a baby, and the yellow rolly-polies did everything that babies would naturally be expected to do at a very fine performance of Julius Cæsar. It was a droll experience; but we were glad the next night to return to the European theatre and our more sophisticatedly sympathetic audience.

I had great difficulty in inducing Tom Street to pull me from Yokohama to Tokio. He assured me that I could, in a fraction of the time and for far less money, go on the train. I assured him that I knew all that, but that I had often been by train, and that I was determined to go once by ’rickshaw. Tom was positively melancholy, but after I had threatened him and my husband had bribed him, he consented. I forget how far it is from Yokohama; I never remember those nice sensible useful points. But it was between fifteen and twenty miles.

We started in the early dawn, which in Japan, in June, is very early indeed. John, the Madrassi, was up betimes, and bullied some one into boiling me an egg and making me a cup of coffee. My husband drew an ulster over his kimono and came out to see me start. Amah lined the ’rickshaw with a lot of cushions and we started.

Tom had a mate, a happy looking, muscular fellow. He was called a “push man.” In Tokio when there are two coolies to one ’rickshaw they both pull, running tandem; but in Yokohama when there are two, one pulls and one goes behind and pushes. One is a “pull man”; one is a “push man.”

Tom and his fellow changed places several times en route to Tokio. They rested twice; about fifteen minutes each time. Three hours and a half after I left Yokohama, I had had a warm bath and was leisurely eating my delicious breakfast in the Tokio hotel.

Our journey had been through the country and through small villages—villages where you might search in vain for one taint of Europe.

I questioned Tom about everything I saw that morning, and about everything he told me intelligently enough, and, as I afterwards learned, accurately. He was one of the people, and he knew them and the manner of their lives.