OBSERVANCES AND PASTIMES
to set aside from the takings interest at the rate of thirty or forty per cent. Thus actor and lessee alike are weighted by a heavy load of debt. That theatrical enterprise should show little vitality under such circumstances is natural. An attempt has indeed been made to improve the stage, the scenery, and the equipment of the house, but the results have not been so successful as to warrant the extension of the effort beyond one theatre. The low status of the profession is still glaringly displayed in meagre scenery, rough wooden buildings, and accommodation of the crudest and most comfortless description. Only at the one theatre just spoken of, the Shintomi-za, or "New-wealth theatre," has the custom of holding representations that last from morning till evening been cut down by a moiety. The waste of time thus entailed and the unwholesome effects of sitting for so many hours in a crowded, ill-ventilated building are not the only evil features of the habit. People who spend the day looking at a play must be provided with meals, and out of that necessity there springs up around the theatre a little city of restaurants and tea-houses, all adding to the costliness of the entertainment and subtracting from the productive capacity of the nation. The theatre, in fact, has not shared the general progress of modern Japan. Yet it certainly has a great future before it, for, in addition to the unique features described above, there is histrionic capacity of the very highest order.
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