on neither love nor death nor abnormal sacrifice for its appeal,
but narrating the discharge of public duty by a high-spirited
woman in the face of ceaseless intrigue and danger. It brings
out the noblest side of Japanese statesmanship, the far-seeing
wisdom and patience of the ruler, together with the perseverance
and devotion of the ruled. The political and personal strands of
interest are so cleverly combined, that for once the grey fabric
of governmental policy is sufficiently embroidered with a pattern
in gold of intersecting character: the scarlet thread is scarcely
missed. Briefly this is the tale. Iyeyasu, having completed his
work of equipping Japan with a durable constitution, retired to
Suruga, and, leaving the shōgunate in Hidetada’s hands, continued
to take private measures for the future welfare of the State. One
of these was the education of his grandson, Taketiyo (better known
as Iyemitsu), whom he wished to be trained in the severest school
of military discipline. For this purpose he chose the Lady of
Kasuga, whose husband, Inaba Sado-no-Kami, was a _rōnin_, having
been dispossessed of title and estates by Hideyoshi. The task was
beset with difficulty. First the wife of Hidetada, and then that
Shōgun himself, lost no occasion of thwarting her efforts and
of putting forward Kunityo, a younger prince, whose gentler and
more refined manner gained him many partisans at Court. In despair
of winning her cause, the Lady of Kasuga fled to Suruga in the
garb of a pilgrim and begged Iyeyasu to decide between the rival
candidates. The old man thereupon returned to Yedo and subjected
the brothers to searching tests of both intellectual and physical
capacity. In all these the more Spartan pupil of the _samurai’s_
wife proved victorious. Up to this point the plot does not differ
very materially from ordinary histories of disputed succession,
but the last act is peculiarly illustrative of woman’s status
during the Tokugawa _régime_. Asked to choose her own reward for
service so admirably rendered, the preceptress of Iyemitsu solicits
the restoration to her husband of his rank and estates; but he,
regarding such a proposal as wounding to his honour, proceeds to
divorce her. Iyeyasu then offers to make the wife a daimyō, but she
refuses, on the ground that to accept would be to still further
dishonour her husband. In the end Inaba is reinstated for having
exhibited a proper spirit of pride and independence, while the Lady
of Kasuga resumes her place at his side.
On the lines of this play, in which conflict of scheming interests
is substituted for hand-to-hand fighting, while a clearly developed
story replaces the old _olla podrida_ of loosely connected scenes,
there is great hope of raising popular drama from a somewhat crude
condition to the level of serious art. It has never aimed at merely
amusing the populace; it has always professed to instruct them.
In the hands of Mr. Fukuchi and men of his stamp its patriotic
bias need not be weakened, while its artistic worth will be much
increased. But it is by no means likely that European drama will
affect its substance, however largely it may influence the form. On
this point Mr. Fukuchi is as emphatic as Mr. Danjuro. Shakespeare
is impossible. His teaching would be at least as pernicious in its
effect on feminine morals and the structure of society as that of
Ibsen is considered by conservative moralists in this country. We
have seen that the restriction of woman’s sphere to loving and
serving does not necessarily rob her of courage or resolution. Many
foreigners resident in Japan have not hesitated to declare their
conviction that the “childish, confiding, sweet Japanese girl” is
superior to the “calculating, penetrating, diamond-hard American
woman,” the consequence and nemesis of masculine idolatry. A little
reflection will show how shocking the heroines of Shakespeare must
seem to admirers of the former type. You have Rosalind, swaggering
shamelessly in male attire; Beatrice, cutting such coarse quips as
Benedick himself would scarcely venture upon to-day in a London
club; Portia, masquerading in cap and gown, and exposing her lover
to dishonour by snatching his betrothal-ring; Juliet and Jessica,
selfishly disregardful of their parents’ wishes; and Katherine the
shrew, whose violent vulgarity fortunately could not be translated
into so polite a language as Japanese. As for “The Merry Wives of
Windsor,” should the Sōshi-Shibai ever dare to present it, I feel
sure that the Tōkyō counterpart of Mr. Clement Scott would denounce
their action in such terms as these:
“This disgusting representation of the most loathsome of all
Shakespeare’s plays was unutterably offensive. So foul a concoction
ought never to have been allowed to disgrace the boards of a
Japanese theatre. The lewd maunderings of Sir John Falstaff, the
licentious jesting of Mistress Ford, Mistress Page, and Mistress
Quickly must excite reprobation in all but those lovers of
prurience and dabblers in impropriety who are eager to gratify
their illicit tastes under the pretence of art. Ninety-seven per
cent. of the people who laughed to see the fat knight smothered in
a basket of dirty linen are nasty-minded people. Outside a silly
clique there is not the slightest interest in the Elizabethan
humbug or all his works.”
II
Many foreigners, unable to catch the meaning of what is to them
a rather tedious dumb-show, pay short and perfunctory visits to
the theatre. But this is not wise, for, even should the play
lie outside their comprehension, the native playgoers are both
affable to accost and interesting to study. They are seated in
lidless boxes lined with matting, in parties of four and five,
on the ground, on slightly elevated seats at the side, or in a
long gallery surrounding the house. A box in the first position
will cost about eight shillings, in the second about nine, in the
last eleven. The higher you climb the more you pay, except in
the _Oikomi_ (“driven-in-place”), where the “gods” are crowded
together in a grated pen, from which little can be seen or heard;
but then the price is no more than sixpence, or a penny an act if
they cannot afford to witness the whole performance. This will
consist of two long plays lasting about four hours each, with an
intermediary tableau, which is generally the most beautifully
mounted of all. During the day every one eats and drinks and
smokes. The women take tea, the men _saké_, while the babies loudly
and numerously imbibe milk. Between the acts, when the handsome
curtains (often gifts from admiring associations to a popular
artist) descend, the audience strolls about the _undoba_, a large
enclosure surrounding the theatre, in which the stall-keepers
sell refreshments, photographs, toys, and all kinds of ornamental
knick-knacks. You escape the headache engendered by the gas and
close atmosphere of a Western play-house, for the sliding shutters
that form the outer walls of the upper storey can be opened at
will to admit currents of cool air. The best day to go is Monday,
for that is the pay-day of the geisha, whom you will see in
almost as many costumes as the actor, since she loves to return
to an adjacent tea-house at frequent intervals for the purpose of
renewing her charms of apparel and complexion.
Tea-houses surround a theatre as jackals a lion; their co-operation
is indispensable to the success of an indoor picnic. Besides, it is
not considered genteel to apply for seats at the door. Your only
chance of a good place is to secure the kind offices of a tea-house
proprietor, who will provide attendance and refreshments, besides
taking charge of your watch, purse, and any other article of
value. The Tōkyō pickpocket is very adroit, and a constant patron
of dramatic art. Formerly the entertainment began at dawn, but
the Government, which exercises paternal supervision over popular
amusements, has now limited its length to eight or nine hours, so
that, if you arrive at half-past ten, you may be sure of seeing the
programme played out until seven or eight in the evening. Having
left your shoes at the tea-house in exchange for a wooden check and
sandals, you will be conducted to a box and presented by a polite
attendant with cushion, programme, tobacco-box, tea, and sweet
cakes, with luncheon to follow. Now, at last, you are at liberty to
observe the antics of the actors.
As you cannot understand what they say, you notice more
particularly how they say it. At first their elocution will seem
both painful and artificial: the tones are too shrill or too gruff,
equally removed from the diapason of natural speech. But that
is because the traditional _samisen_, a three-stringed guitar,
follows the performer like a curse from start to finish. Unless he
pitched his voice above or below its notes, he could not be heard.
Even so, the author complains that his words receive inadequate
attention from either player or playgoer, for the former relies
chiefly on pose and facial expression to score his points, while
the latter obediently admires the methods of acting to which he has
always been accustomed. It cannot be denied that these methods are
effective. I have seen the feminine part of the audience infected
with such violent emotion by the agonised play of mobile features
as to rush for relief to the “Tear-Room,” where they can cry to
heart’s content without inconveniencing more stoical neighbours.
Though the actor’s tone is disagreeably unnatural, his articulation
is both clean-cut and sonorous. The syllables crack on the ear
like pistol-shots, sharply distinct. I imagine that he is seldom
inaudible. It is a great pity that convention, if not law, still
forbids the appearance of men and women on the same stage, since
the mimicry of one sex by the other, triumphantly deceptive in
other particulars, breaks down at the point of vocal imitation. The
eye is tricked, but not the ear. Yet peculiar attention is given
to the training and discipline of _onnagata_, or impersonators
of female parts. Formerly they were not only given the outward
semblance of women by every contrivance which the costumier and
coiffeur could supply, but were required to spend their lives from
childhood in feminine costume and society, that their masculine
proclivities might be as far as possible obliterated. Even now
their names stand first on the programme, their dressing-rooms
are locked on the inside, their influence is paramount in the
Actors’ Guild. The supremacy of Mr. Danjuro is due in no small
degree to his ability to play both male and female characters with
equal _éclat_. Notwithstanding every precaution and privilege,
the actor cannot acquire the intonation of an actress. His reedy
falsetto is a poor parody of the musical tones in which Japanese
women converse, and the loss to a public which has never been
caressed by Sara Bernhardt’s golden voice or thrilled by Mrs.
Patrick Campbell’s may be sympathetically imagined. But, though
Tōkyō has no actresses, the Women’s Theatre in Kyōto, in which are
no actors, might seem a partial set-off to this deficiency. In
fact, however, though the women are extremely clever in simulating
the gait and gestures of men--if I had not been taken behind the
scenes, I should have believed myself in the wrong theatre--they
are hopelessly handicapped by physical weakness. The stage is so
enormous, and the performance so long, that an artist may reckon
on walking ten miles in the course of the day, while the voice is
severely taxed by the prolonged stridency of declamation.
While the stage-woman, adroitly personated, is often tolerable,
the stage-child is an intolerable infliction. Convention has
decreed that it shall shriek all its lines on one high monotonous
note, and shriek it does. There is no attempt at variety of tone
or naturalness of expression. When a steam-launch emits similar
sounds, we condone in a machine what we resent in a human being.
It is simply an ear-splitting automaton. One turns with relief
to watch the children in the audience, who are evidently the
spoiled darlings of their relations. But, indeed, the child seems
never snubbed or thwarted in Japan. At the termination of every
act, while the curtains fall or are drawn together, there is a
scurry of tiny feet up and down the parallel _hana-michi_ (the
flower-walks which divide the auditorium), and, if some audacious
little intruders rush upon the stage itself, they are greeted with
indulgent laughter.
Perhaps the chief obstacle to illusion, and the one most easily
remedied as regards scenic accessories, is the enormous area of
the stage. It is far too large to be enclosed between “wings”
and “flies,” while the custom of exit and entry along the
flower-walks transgresses our cardinal principle of separating
those who act from those who look on. As a rule, the supposed
locality of the piece, be it palace or temple or battle-field, is
a wood-and-cardboard island in a sea of bare boards, of which the
circumference nearly corresponds with that of a revolving section
of the stage, twenty or thirty feet in diameter, which turns on
lignum-vitæ wheels. While one scene is being enacted, a second is
being prepared behind, and at a given signal the _eccyclema_ is
whirled round, carrying away one set of actors and bringing on
their successors. Do not suppose, however, that realistic effects
are outside the range of the Meiji-za or Kabuki-za management. I
remember a melodrama, written by a lieutenant in the Japanese navy,
in which the hero, though encumbered by a heavy piece of ordnance
hoisted on his shoulders, cut down eight assailants in turn in
spite of a terrific storm, which drenched the company with real
rain and blew down real trees, planted that afternoon!
The actor is a more important personage than the author in most
people’s eyes. Until this relation shall be reversed, the Thespian
cart is not likely to leave the rut in which it moves. Meanwhile,
a glance at their respective positions may fitly conclude this
essay. Before Meiji, the present era of enlightenment, the
mummer was treated as a rogue and vagabond. He was regarded with
contempt as a _koyamono_, or “occupant of a hut,” and placed on
a par with mendicants. In public places he was obliged to wear a
_mebakari-zukin_ or hood, which covered head and face all but the
eyes, and was only allowed to frequent particular restaurants.
Unless he belonged to one of the half-dozen theatrical families
who ruled the stage with oligarchic exclusiveness, monopolising
the secrets of the profession, the power to admit novices, and the
right to play particular parts, his progress was slow. Beginning
with the horse’s leg (_uma no ashi_), a limb of the pantomimic
charger, which was indispensable to historic drama, he was obliged
to buy or insinuate his way by adoption to more important parts
before he could earn either fame or fortune. Nowadays all that is
changed. Free competition rules. The public is his only patron.
Without training or payment of fees to the Ichikawa, the Onoye,
or the Nakamura, a successful _débutant_ can march by his own
merits into wealth and popularity. As he treads the flower-walks,
fans, purses, embroidered pouches will be showered at his feet;
to his dressing-room will come love-letters innumerable, for the
Japanese “matinée girl” is very susceptible; in public he will
be pointed out, the idol of the masses; his crest will be on the
tortoise-shell or ivory pin, which adorns the high coiffure of
the stage-struck _musumé_; finally, should he ever reach the head
of his profession, he may hope to make as much as £5000 in four
weeks, far surpassing the modest income of a prime minister or an
archbishop.
[Illustration: The Heroine of a Problem-play.]
But the author, instead of ruling the kingdom which he creates, is
in most cases no more than a theatrical _employé_. In fact, the
term “create” can only be used with much qualification, for the
genesis of a play is curiously and multifariously planned. First,
the manager sends for the author, and indicates the subject and
period which he desires to form the bases of a drama; the author
prepares and submits two or three drafts, from which the best is
selected; then the cast is appointed, and the chief actors are
consulted about their parts, which of course are modified to suit
their suggestions; then the composer is called in, and, if the
musical setting should lead to new alterations in the libretto,
the author has no choice but to submit. When plays have to be
constructed in this way, you cannot expect them to have any more
artistic value than a London pantomime or “musical comedy.” Nor
has the author the satisfaction of salving the wounds to “artistic
conscience” with consolatory gold. On the first run of a piece
(the season is never longer than four or five weeks at a time) he
may receive £20; a revival may bring him in £10 more, a provincial
tour yet another £10. On the whole, he will be lucky to make £50,
while the leading actor makes £5000. But then the audiences do not
pay their money for the opportunity of solving historical problems
or appreciating intellectual artistry: their object is simply
to feast eyes and ears on a sensational pageant, in which to
them the actor is king. They do not bestow a thought on the power
behind the throne, chained there by ignorance and convention. Plays
are sometimes published, but their sale is insignificant. The
aristocracy, both of birth and intellect, hold too much aloof from
a plebeian amusement, which under higher conditions might become a
fruitful and immortal art. When I think of Mr. Fukuchi, fettered
by public taste, that stupidest of Jupiters, to the Caucasus of
picturesque melodrama, while vulturine actors peck at his brains,
I wish that a chorus of Oceanides, winged ideas and ideals from
Paris, from London, and Christiania--could cross the seas to Tōkyō
and liberate Prometheus.
GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM
GEISHA AND CHERRY-BLOSSOM
Nothing is more difficult to eradicate than a British misconception
of foreign defects. French lubricity, German clumsiness, Russian
cruelty, are quite as much articles of faith on this side of
the Channel as Albion’s perfidy on the other. Similarly, it is
useless to controvert the popular opinion that the geisha is
generally pretty and always improper. Her detractors have seen an
English opera bearing her name and traducing her character: it
is enough; they know. Nevertheless, this opinion is founded on
imperfect knowledge, and requires much modification before it can
be received as even partially true. Etymologically, a _gei-sha_ is
an accomplished person; socially, she is an entertainer, who has
been trained from the age of seven or eight to dance or sing for
the amusement of guests at a dinner-party. Probably her parents
have leased her for a certain number of years to a teacher, who
undertakes to board and train her, to procure engagements and
to chaperon her, to pay a fixed sum to her family as well as a
tax to the Government, in return for all of which a sufficient
recompense is assured by the fees which a talented artist is able
to earn. Less frequently she lives at home and obtains engagements
through an agent, who receives only a percentage of her gains. The
training is continuous and severe. To a foreigner the dancing will
appear graceful but monotonous; it has none of the free, vigorous
motion which we associate with the term: on the other hand, for
the connoisseur each gesture is significant, each pose symbolic.
To appreciate many of the “dances,” requiring hours of patient
rehearsal, it would be necessary to catch continual allusion to
poems, legends, and flowers, with which the treasure-house of
Japanese memory is stored. Those who would deny the applicability
of the term “music” to “the strummings and squealings of
Orientals,” would yet admit that both the _koto_ and _samisen_
(the stringed instruments most in vogue) are not to be mastered
without constant practice, and the irregular rhythm of the songs,
with their abrupt intervals and capricious repetitions, cannot be
easy to render until the voice has attained extreme flexibility.
On the mysteries of Japanese music, however, seeing that the
best authorities are at variance, only an expert dare pronounce
judgment. To return to the question of the social status of the
geisha, I should say that it corresponds more exactly with that
of a Parisian actress than of an Athenian _hetaira_. Convention
having banished the actress from the Japanese stage, the geisha
takes her place as the natural recipient of masculine homage. She
is much courted, and sometimes makes a brilliant match. There are
a large number who make the profession an excuse for attracting
rich admirers, just as the name of “actress” in more Puritan climes
will cover a multitude of sins. But a professional courtesan
she is not: her favours are not always for sale to the highest
bidder. When her short reign is over at the age of twenty-five,
she generally imparts to a younger generation the secrets of
professional success. Among these the art of conversation is
not the least important. To parry indiscreet advances and to
bandy compliments enter as much into her _rôle_ as the playing
of “Kitsune ken” or “fox-forfeit,” in which no little agility is
needed to represent at the right moment the fox, the man, and the
gun on facile fingers. Childish of course the geisha is, like most
of her younger countrywomen; sometimes dangerous and fickle, as her
popular nickname of “Nekko,” the cat, testifies; but virtuous as
well, in many cases, where she has enough independence and strength
of character to resist the flattering importunity of fame’s
innumerable suitors.
If one of these aspire to win her affection, or merely to make
her acquaintance, he has many advantages over the callow youths
who wait, like lackeys, at the stage-door of a Western theatre.
He is spared the preliminary purgatory of appealing letters, of
supplicatory presents, which may easily fail to secure the desired
access. He is not forced to share with a crowd of jealous or
indifferent strangers the bitter joy of her nightly apotheosis,
when her smiles and wiles must be lavished in promiscuous appeal.
He has merely to dine at the tea-house with which she, or her
employer, has made a mutually advantageous contract: there, on
sufficient notice, she will arrive with her duenna, ready to
perform, if need be, for his delight alone, while the semi-privacy
of the entertainment affords him every opportunity of pressing his
suit. As a rule, however, the geisha performs in parties of two,
or three, or more, according to the number of guests. Often the
convivial character of the occasion tends to lower the standard
of art involved; indeed, such feasts are apt to degenerate into
orgies. To realise the æsthetic possibilities of an art which is
only at its lowest bacchanalian, we must quit the tea-house, that
temple of the senses, and seek the sacred city of Kyōto, where
palace and monastery raise, like antique junks, their majestic or
quaintly carven heads above white waves of cherry-blossom....
It is April. While English weather is struggling in spasmodic
furies of wind and rain to escape the clutch of winter, here the
enfranchised spring creeps, fairy-like, from plain to height
on rosy sandals. First Tōkyō, whose hundred miles of unpaved
thoroughfare fatigue the foot and offend the eye with naked
dreariness, is clothed with draperies of fleecy pink. The spacious
parks of Ueno and Shiba are thronged with gazing multitudes, who
ride or saunter all day long through flower-encumbered avenues. At
night the river-reaches of Mukōjima are packed with pleasure-boats,
whose lanterns gleam like fire-flies beneath the pale mass of
overhanging bloom. Yamaguchi San, who by trade is a rice merchant
but by nature a poet, has written in the intervals of business,
which is not brisk at this time of year, a little sheaf of poems,
each consisting of three lines, which run perpendicularly down
strips of iridescent rice-paper. So far as their purport can be
construed into grosser forms of verse, I take it to be as follows:
“Put on your brightest _kimono_,
O Haru San, and let us go!
“Bring ivory chop-sticks, lacquer-cup,
And rice and wine, that we may sup.
“On honourable trees is set
A rosy-petalled coronet.
“The shine of day, the sheen of night,
Are drowned in cherry-blossom-light.
“We have no need of sun or star
To revel at Mukōjima.”