AMUSEMENTS.--WRESTLERS AND THEATRICAL ENTERTAINMENTS.
After the party had recovered from the fatigues of the journey to
Fusiyama, the boys were on the lookout for something new. Various
suggestions were made, and finally Frank proposed that they should go to
a theatre. This was quite to Fred's liking, and so it did not take a
long time to come to a determination on the subject. The Doctor agreed
that the theatre was an interesting study, and so the matter was
settled.
"What time in the evening must we go," said Fred, "so as to be there in
season for the beginning of the performance?"
"If you want to be there in season for the beginning," the Doctor
answered, "you should go in the morning, or, at all events, very early
in the day."
"Wouldn't it be well to go the day before?" Frank ventured to ask.
"Certainly you could do so," Fred responded, "or you might go next week
or last summer."
"The Japanese performances," Doctor Bronson continued, "do not all begin
in the morning, but the most of them do, and they last the entire day.
In China they have historic plays that require a week or more for their
complete representation; but in Japan they are briefer in their ways,
and a performance is not continued from one day to the next. They have
greater variety here than in China, and the plays are less tedious both
to one who understands the language and to one who does not. The
Japanese are a gayer people than the Chinese, and consequently their
plays are less serious in character."
It was agreed that a day should be given to amusements, and these should
include anything that the boys and their tutor could find. Frank went in
pursuit of the landlord of the hotel, and soon returned with the
information that there was a theatrical performance that very day in the
native theatre, and also a wrestling match which was sure to be
interesting, as the Japanese wrestlers are different from those of any
other country. After a little discussion it was determined that they
would first go to the wrestling match, and Frank should write a
description of the wrestlers and what they did. After the wrestling
match was disposed of, they would take up the theatre, and of this Fred
should be the historian.
Here is Frank's account of the wrestling as it appeared in the next
letter he sent home:
[Illustration: A JAPANESE WRESTLER.]
"I thought we were going to a hall, but it was nothing of the sort, as
we understand a hall. We went into a large tent, which was made by
stretching matting over a space enclosed by a high fence; the fence
formed the walls of the building, and the matting made the roof. We had
the ground to sit on or stand on, but soon after we went in a man
brought us some chairs, and we sat down. In the centre of the tent there
was a circular mound something like a circus ring; it was perhaps two
feet high and ten feet across, and there was a flat place outside of it
where the master of ceremonies was to stand and see that everything was
fair. We paid twenty-five cents to go in, and then we paid about five
cents more for each chair; of course we were in the best places, and
only a few others were in that part. I don't know how much the Japanese
paid in the poor places, but I don't believe it was more than five
cents.
"In a little while after we went in, the performance began. A boy came
into the ring from a room at one side of the tent, and he walked as if
he were playing the king, or some other great personage. When he got to
the middle of the ring, he opened a fan he carried in his right hand. He
opened it with a quick jerk, as though he were going to shake it to
pieces; and after he had opened it he announced the names of the
wrestlers who were to come into the first act. If I hadn't been told
what he was doing, I should have thought he was playing something from
Shakspeare, he made such a fuss about it. Then he went out and the
wrestlers came in, with a big fellow that Fred said must be the boss
wrestler. He looked like an elephant, he was so big.
"The wrestlers were the largest men I have seen in Japan; and the fact
is I didn't suppose the country contained any men so large. As near as I
could see, they had more fat than muscle on them; but there must have
been a good deal of muscle, too, for they were strong as oxen. Doctor
Bronson says he has seen some of these wrestlers carry two sacks of rice
weighing a hundred and twenty-five pounds each, and that one man carried
a sack with his teeth, while another took one under his arm and turned
somersets with it, and did not once lose his hold. The Doctor says these
men are a particular race of Japanese, and it used to be the custom for
each prince to have a dozen or more of these wrestlers in his suite to
furnish amusement for himself and his friends. Sometimes two princes
would get up a match with their wrestlers, just as men in New York get
up matches between dogs and chickens. Then there were troupes of
wrestlers, who went around giving exhibitions, just as they sometimes do
in America. But you never saw such fat men in all your life as they
were; not fat in one place, like the man that keeps the grocery on the
corner of the public square in our town, but fat all over. I felt the
back and arms of one of them, and his muscles were as hard as iron. The
flesh on his breast was soft, and seemed like a thick cushion of fat. I
think you might have hit him there with a mallet without hurting him
much.
[Illustration: A PAIR OF WRESTLERS AND THEIR MANAGER.]
"Some of them could hardly see out of their eyes on account of the fat
around them; and when their arms were doubled up, they looked like the
hams of a hog. I was told that the Japanese idea of a wrestler is to
have a man as fat as possible, which is just the reverse of what we
think is right. They train their men all their lives to have them get up
all the fat they can; and if a man doesn't get it fast enough, they put
him to work, and tell him he can never be a wrestler. It is odd that a
people so thin as the Japanese should think so much about having men
fat; but I suppose it is because we all like the things that are our
opposites. But this isn't telling about the wrestling match.
"After the herald had given the names of the wrestlers who were to make
the first round, the fellows came in. They were dressed without any
clothes to speak of, or rather they were quite undressed, with the
exception of a cloth around their loins. They came in on opposite sides
of the ring, and stood there about five feet apart, each man resting his
hands on his knees, and glaring at the other like a wild beast. They
looked more like a pair of tigers than human beings, and for a moment I
thought it was not at all unlike what a bull-fight in Spain might be.
[Illustration: THE CLINCH.]
"There they stood glaring, as I told you, and making a noise like
animals about to fight. They stamped on the ground and made two or three
rushes at each other, and then fell back to watch for a better chance.
They kept this up a minute or so, and then darted in and clinched; and
then you could see their great muscles swell, and realize that they were
as strong as they were fat.
"They did not try to throw each other, as we do when we wrestle, but
they tried to push from one side of the ring to the other. I couldn't
understand this until the Doctor told me that it is not necessary for
one of the men to be thrown. All that is to be done is for one of them
to push the other outside the ring; and even if he only gets one foot
out, the game is up. Only once during all we saw of the match did
anybody get thrown down, as we should expect to see him in a wrestling
match in America. And when he did get fairly on the ground, it was not
very easy for him to rise, which is probably the reason why the rules of
the Japanese ring are so different from ours.
"They had several matches of this kind with the two men standing up
facing each other before they clinched; and then they tried another
plan. One man took his place in the ring, and braced himself as though
he were trying to stop a locomotive. When he was ready a signal was
given, and another man came out full tilt against him. They butted their
heads together like two rams, and tried to hit each other in the breast.
In a short time they were covered with blood, and looked very badly; but
the Doctor says they were not hurt so much as they seemed to be. They
kept this up for nearly a quarter of an hour, and took turns at the
business--one of them being bull for the other to play railway train
against. It was as bad for one as for the other; and if I had my choice
which character to play, I wouldn't play either.
"After the wrestling was over they had some fencing, which I liked much
better, as there was more skill to it and less brutality. The fencers
were announced in the same way as the other performers had been. They
wore large masks that protected their heads, and their fencing was with
wooden swords or sticks, so that no harm was done. The game was for each
to hit his adversary's head, and when this was done a point was scored
for the man who made the hit. They did a good deal of shouting and
snarling at each other, and sometimes their noise sounded more as if
made by cats than by human beings. In other respects their fencing was
very much like ours, and was very creditable to the parties engaged in
it. One of the best fencers in the lot was a young girl. She wasn't more
than sixteen years old, and she had arms strong enough for a man of
thirty. The performance ended with the fencing, and then we went back to
the hotel."
It was determined that the evening would be quite early enough to go to
the theatre, and so the party did not start until after seven o'clock.
They secured a box at one side of the auditorium, where they could see
the stage and the audience at the same time. When you go to the play in
a strange land, the audience is frequently quite as interesting a study
as the performance, and sometimes more so. In no country is this more
truly the case than in Japan. But it was agreed that Fred should give
the account of the play, and so we will listen to him. Here is his
story:
"The theatre was a small one, according to our notions, but it was well
ventilated, which is not always the case in America. The man that sold
the tickets was very polite, and so was the one who took them at the
door. The latter called an usher, who showed us to our box, and brought
the chairs for us; and then he brought a programme, but we couldn't read
a word of it, as it was all in Japanese. We cared more about looking at
the people than trying to read something that we couldn't read at all;
and so I folded up the programme and put it into my pocket.
"The house had a floor and galleries like one of our theatres, but there
were only two galleries, and one of them was on a level with the
parquet. The parquet, or floor, was divided into boxes, and they were
literally boxes, and no mistake. They were square, and the partitions
between them were little more than a foot high, with a flat board on the
top for a rail. This was about five inches wide, and I soon saw what it
was used for, as the people walked on it in going to and from their
boxes. The boxes had no chairs in them, but they were carpeted with
clean matting; and anybody could get cushions from the ushers by asking
for them. Each box was intended to hold four persons; but it required
that the four should not be very large, and that each should stick to
his own corner. One box in front of us had six women in it, and there
were two or three boxes crowded with children. They had tea and
sweetmeats in many of the boxes, and I noticed that men and boys were
going around selling these things. I asked if we had come to the right
place, as it occurred to me that it was only at the Bowery and that kind
of theatre in New York that they sold peanuts and such things; but the
Doctor said it was all right, and they did this in all the best theatres
in Japan.
[Illustration: JAPANESE ACTOR DRESSED AS A DOCTOR.]
"Of course, if they come and stay all day, they must have something to
eat, and so I saw the reason of their having tea and other refreshments
peddled about the house. Then there were men who sold books which gave
an account of the play, and had portraits of some of the principal
players. I suppose these books were really the bills of the play; and if
we could have read them, we should have known something about the
performance more than we do now.
"While we were looking at the audience there came half a dozen raps
behind the curtain, as if two pieces of wood had been knocked together;
and a moment after the rapping had stopped, the curtain was drawn aside.
It was a common sort of curtain, and did not open in the middle like
some of ours, or roll up like others; it was pulled aside as if it ran
on a wire, and when it was out of sight we saw the stage set to
represent a garden with lots of flower-pots and bushes. The stage was
very small compared with an American one, and not more than ten or
twelve feet deep; but it was set quite well, though not so elaborately
as we would arrange it. The orchestra was in a couple of little boxes
over the stage, one on each side, and each box contained six persons,
three singers and three guitar-players. This is the regulation orchestra
and chorus, so they say, in all the Japanese theatres, but it is
sometimes differently made up. If a theatre is small and poor, it may
have only two performers in each box, and sometimes one box may be
empty, but this is not often.
[Illustration: THE SAMISEN.]
"The orchestra furnishes music by means of the guitar, or 'samisen.' It
is played something like our guitar, except that a piece of ivory is
used for striking the strings, and is always used in a concert that has
any pretence to being properly arranged. There are two or three other
instruments, one of them a small drum, which they play upon with the
fingers; but it is not so common as the samisen, and I don't think it is
so well liked. Then they have flutes, and some of them are very sweet,
and harmonize well with the samisen; but the singers do not like them
for an accompaniment unless they have powerful voices. The
samisen-players generally sing, and in the theatres the musicians form a
part of the chorus. A good deal of the play is explained by the chorus;
and if there are any obscure points, the audience is told what they are.
I remember seeing the same thing almost exactly, or, at any rate, the
same thing in principle, in the performance of "Henry V." at a theatre
in New York several years ago, so that this idea of having the play
explained by the chorus cannot be claimed as a Japanese invention.
[Illustration: PLAYING THE SAMISEN.]
"In the theatre the singing goes on sometimes while the actors are on
the stage, and we got tired of it in a little while. I don't suppose the
Japanese get so tired of it, or they would stop having it. Some of them
admit that it would be better to have the orchestra in front of the
stage, as we do; but others say that so long as the chorus must do so
much towards explaining the play, they had better remain where they are.
The Japanese seem to like their theatre as it is, and therefore they
will not be apt to change in a hurry.
"Just after the curtain was pulled away, they opened a door in the
middle of the garden, and the actors who were to be in the play came in.
They sat down on the stage and began a song, which they kept up for ten
or fifteen minutes, each of them singing a part that was evidently
prepared for himself alone. The music in the little boxes joined them,
and it made me think of the negro minstrels in a concert hall at home,
where they all come on together. After they finished this part of the
performance, there was a pantomime by a woman, or rather by a man
disguised as a woman, as all the acting is done by men. They get
themselves up perfectly, as they have very little beards, and they can
imitate the voice and movements of a woman, so that nobody can tell the
difference. I couldn't tell what the pantomime was all about, and it was
so long that I got tired of it before they were through, and wondered
when they would come on with something else.
[Illustration: SCENE FROM A JAPANESE COMEDY.--WRITING A LETTER OF
DIVORCE.]
"Then the real acting of the piece began, and I wished ever so much that
it had been in English, so that I could understand it. The story was a
supernatural one, and there were badgers and foxes in it, and they had a
woman changed to a badger, and the badger to a woman again. Gentlemen
who are familiar with Japanese theatres say there are many of these
stories, like our Little Red Riding-hood, and other fairy tales, acted
on the stage, and that the play we saw is one of the most popular, and
is called 'Bumbuku Chagama,' or 'The Bubbling Teapot.' One gentleman has
shown me a translation of it, and I will put it in here, just to show
you what a Japanese fairy story is like.
"'Once upon a time, it is said, there lived a very old badger in the
temple known as Morin-je, where there was also an iron teapot called
Bumbuku Chagama, which was a precious thing in that sacred place. One
day when the chief priest, who was fond of tea and kept the pot always
hanging in his sitting-room, was about taking it, as usual, to make tea
for drinking, a tail came out of it. He was startled, and called
together all the little _bourges_, his pupils, that they might behold
the apparition. Supposing it to be the mischievous work of a fox or
badger, and being resolved to ascertain its real character, they made
due preparations. Some of them tied handkerchiefs about their heads, and
some stripped the coats from their shoulders, and armed themselves with
sticks and bits of firewood. But when they were about to beat the vessel
down, wings came out of it; and as it flew about from one side to
another, like a dragon-fly, while they pursued it, they could neither
strike nor secure it. Finally, however, having closed all the windows
and sliding-doors, after hunting it vigorously from one corner to
another, they succeeded in confining it in a small space, and presently
in capturing it.
[Illustration: SCENE FROM A JAPANESE COMEDY.--LOVE-LETTER DISCOVERED.]
"'While they were consulting what to do with it, a man entered whose
business it was to collect and sell waste paper, and they showed him the
teapot with a view of disposing of it to him if possible. He observed
their eagerness, and offered a much lower price than it was worth; but
as it was now considered a disagreeable thing to have in the temple,
they let him have it at his own price. He took it and hastily carried it
away. He reached his home greatly pleased with his bargain, and looking
forward to a handsome profit the next day, when he would sell it for
what it was worth.
"'Night came on, and he lay down to rest. Covering himself with his
blankets, he slept soundly.
"'But near the middle of the night the teapot changed itself into the
form of a badger, and came out of the waste paper, where it had been
placed. The merchant was aroused by the noise, and caught the teapot
while it was in flight. By treating it kindly he soon gained its
confidence and affection. In the course of time it became so docile that
he was able to teach it rope-dancing and other accomplishments.
"'The report soon spread that Bumbuku Chagama had learned to dance, and
the merchant was invited to go to all the great and small provinces,
where he was summoned to exhibit the teapot before the great daimios,
who loaded him down with gifts of gold and silver. In course of time he
reflected that it was only through the teapot, which he had bought so
cheap, that he became so prosperous, and felt it his duty to return it
again, with some compensation, to the temple. He therefore carried it to
the temple, and, telling the chief priest of his good fortune, offered
to restore it, together with half the money he had gained.
[Illustration: TELLING THE STORY OF BUMBUKU CHAGAMA.]
"'The priest was well pleased with his gratitude and generosity, and
consented to receive the gifts. The badger was made the tutelary spirit
of the temple, and the name of Bumbuku Chagama has remained famous in
Morin-je to this day, and will be held in remembrance to the latest ages
as a legend of ancient time.'
"This is the fairy story," Fred continued, "which we saw on the stage;
but it was varied somewhat in the acting, as the badger at times took
the form of a woman, and afterwards that of a badger again, as I have
already told you. A good deal of the acting was in pantomime, and in the
scene where they are all trying to catch the teapot as it flies around
the room they had quite a lively dance. We enjoyed the play very much,
but I don't care to go again till I know something about the Japanese
language. And a well-cushioned chair would add to the comfort of the
place."