Sketches of Tokyo Life/Chapter 2
ENTRANCE TO A THEATRE (OLD STYLE, WITH THE DRUM-CAGE).
CHAPTER II.
The Actor and the Stage.
ommy Atkins is at a discount in Japan; he has no place in the nursery-maid’s heart. The prestige and dignity that attached in the feudal times to the profession of arms made her afraid to set her cap so high. Though, since the reorganisation of the military system after the Restoration, the old samurai spirit has in a great measure been inherited by the officers, the rank and file being recruited by conscription to remain for three years with the colours, soldiering ceased to be a distinct and life-long profession, and the common soldier was no longer held in awe by the populace. Callow maidenhood among the lower classes has, it is true, its dreams of love; but neither Tommy Atkins nor Jack Tar is its hero. That favoured position is monopolised by the actor who, in addition to his Thespian and Terpsichorean accomplishments, has the reputation of being a Lothario. Probably the low esteem in which he was held in the feudal days when he was dubbed a river-side beggar from the first theatre in Kyoto being built on the river-side, was responsible for his low morality which made him content to be in private life the plaything of loose women. But though he has not quite emerged from that despicable state, the importance of his profession is beginning to be recognised and his lax morality to be condemned. But whatever the actor’s private life may be, the theatre is certainly the most notable of public diversions in Japan as in other countries and is on that account always interesting.
Though there were stately dances set to music and song in the old times, the drama, in the ordinary sense of the word, did not arise until the sixteenth century. As the earliest play dealt with the loves of Lady Joruri, the daughter of a wealthy countryman, and Yoshitsune, a younger brother of the founder of the feudal system and one of the favourite heroes of old Japan, dramatic productions became known as joruri. This play has been attributed, on doubtful authority, to Ono O-Tsu, a waiting-woman in the household of Ota Nobunaga, the Taiko’s master. It was not, however, for the stage that the earlier dramas were composed. When the country had recovered peace under the Tokugawa shogun, Satsuma Joun, a native of Sakai, near Osaka, who had studied music under a noted blind musician, gave with puppets made in Kyoto, dramatic performances in Yedo. He was the first to recite and sing lyrical dramas, and his booth drew crowded houses during the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Many of his pupils, on leaving him, also exhibited puppets with new musical variations which became known after them. There are thus divers styles of music, which may all be traced to Joun’s. Joun and his immediate successors appealed in their representations to the military spirit which was still very active. For nearly a century, these puppet-shows retained popularity in Yedo; but the dramas which had originally been written for them were subsequently transferred to the stage.
These puppet-plays, however, reached their highest development in Osaka. One of Joun’s best pupils left Yedo for Kyoto where he made the joruri very popular; but in the latter city a new school of joruri arose later on under Uji Kaganojo, who, however, found a powerful rival in Inouye Harima in Osaka. The fame of these two men was soon eclipsed by that of a third, Takemoto Gidayu, who invented a style which combined all that was good in both of them without any of their defects. His style is recognised as the best of all joruri and has ever since been so popular that the gidayu, as it is called after him, is often confounded by the common people with the joruri, of which it is only a single form. It was in 1686 that Gidayu first opened a puppet-show in Osaka at which he himself sang and recited, when he was thirty-five years old. While his popularity was no doubt due to his own great ability, still he was exceptionally fortunate in commanding the services of the greatest lyrical dramatist of Japan. Chikamatsu Monzayemon, who was born in 1653, and therefore Gidayu’s junior by a year, had, after being brought up in a temple, entered a court noble’s service; but he soon left it and took to writing librettos for puppet-shows. He had already written eight plays, none of them possessing any high merit, before he produced the first of his great plays for Gidayu. During twenty-eight years until Gidayu’s death in 1714, he wrote for him about sixty plays; and throughout that long interval he produced only two plays that were not for him, but for his pupil. This unique partnership between two men of the first rank in their respective professions made their joint work the model of the Japanese lyrical drama.
After Gidayu’s death, Chikamatsu who died ten years later, wrote some thirty plays for the singer’s pupils. All his plays were on historical subjects except twenty-two, which were domestic. Before his time there were only historical dramas; and Chikamatsu had tried his apprentice hand at them. Though his genius did much to raise them from crudity to a high level of excellence, they cannot, with a few exceptions, be pronounced unqualified successes. In historical plays he had to respect the popular traditions regarding historical characters and to take into consideration the mental capacity of his audience, which was not of high order, and consequently his genius had not a full scope for its exercise. In the social or domestic play which he was the first to produce, the case was totally different. Here he was in his element, for the subjects he took were derived from common life. In those days when newspapers were unknown, passing events transpired but slowly; and every item of news was eagerly devoured, though it suffered from
THE GIDAYU-SINGER’S PERCH.
exaggeration in the transmission. Gidayu would, on getting scent of a sensational occurrence, hie to Chikamatsu and make him write a play on the subject before it became generally known. For this reason, many of Chikamatsu’s domestic plays deal with lovers’ suicides, murders, and other events which must have caused a great excitement at the time. In these dramas, Chikamatsu could, by only taking the main incidents, give a free play to his imagination, and dealing as he was with contemporary life with which both he and his audience were equally familiar, he could present a complete picture of his time. The beauty of his style and diction is almost unsurpassed in Japanese literature; and such command had he over language that even scholars of the classical or Chinese school, who had little sympathy with him, could not withhold their admiration. The greatest and most perfect of the domestic dramas, as it is among his maturest, is perhaps the Tenno-Amijima, which describes the suicide of two lovers, a paper-dealer and a courtezan. It was written in 1720 in his sixty-eighth year.
One of Gidayu’s pupils, Toyotake Echizen, who formed a school of his own, put upon his puppet stage the plays of Ki no Kaion, a dramatist of high talent, who, however, was thrown into the shade by Chikamatsu’s surpassing fame. Chikamatsu’s worthiest successor was Takeda Izumo (1691–1756), who opened a puppet show in Osaka. From his time joint authorship in drama came into fashion. Izumo collaborated with two others in the production of his most celebrated plays. After they had fixed upon the general plot, they would apportion the whole play among themselves, each to write his part independently of the others, and afterwards bring them together for discussion. The play would be produced after they had thoroughly revised and brought those parts into order. Though something was to be gained from their collective efforts, the play was generally of unequal merit and suffered in continuity and harmony. Hence, most of these collaborated plays are but partially known, the gidayu-singer producing only the best and most popular acts; and the majority of his audience are ignorant of the unrecited parts of the plays in his répertoire. The most evenly constructed of these plays is probably the Chushingura, written in 1744 by Takeda Izumo and his collaborators. Both the subject, the revenge of their lord’s death by forty seven retainers, and the treatment which maintains a high degree of excellence throughout, make this play the most popular of all on the Japanese stage. It remains to this day the stock play, which is sure of drawing full houses when all others have failed; and such hold does it still retain on the Japanese audience that Danjuro, the leading actor in Tokyo, has played the rôle of the hero no less than forty-eight times. After the death of Chikamatsu Hanji (1725–1783), who makes with Chikamatsu Monzayemon and Takeda Izumo the great trio of lyrical dramatists, their school declined and few noted plays of the kind have been produced in this century.
With the decline of the Osaka school of lyrical drama, puppet-shows also fell out of favour. Though such shows are still held regularly in Osaka and occasionally in Tokyo, they may be said to have been entirely superseded by the theatre. The lyrical drama still holds the stage; but it is not the only form of drama. In the seventeenth century, crude plays were written by actors for their own theatres, who often added to their répertoire adaptations of lyrical plays when they were in want of original plots. In the following century when the lyrical drama was at the zenith of its prosperity under Chikamatsu Monzayemon and his successors, the prose drama also took a high literary form under Tsuuchi Jihei who died in 1760 at over eighty years of age. He was succeeded by many talented writers, the last of whom was Kawatake Mokuami (1816–1893); but even the high standard of their plays could not diminish the popularity of the lyrical drama, which, in addition to its superiority as literature by being couched in more poetic language, has the inestimable advantage of being better known to the public through gidayu-singers. The Restoration has not yet given rise to a new school of drama.
There were in the old days many dances, mostly religious in their origin, which certainly aided in the formation of the histrionic art in Japan. In 1564, O-Kuni, a priestess of Izumo, went from town to town where she danced to collect funds for the repair of the great shrine in that province. When she arrived at Kyoto, her dancing so pleased the shogun before whom she performed, that he at once gave orders for repairing the shrine out of the public fund. O-Kuni remained in the capital, where her art was widely admired. In the shogun’s household there was a retainer named Nagoya Sanzayemon, who wrote simple dramatic pieces for her. He afterwards married her; but when this reached the shogun’s ears, he was dismissed from his service. Sanzayemon joined O-Kuni, and they played together in the theatre; and their example was largely followed. Dramatic performances flourished in Kyoto, though the actor’s profession was not yet recognised. Early in the seventeenth century, actresses were on account of their loose character prohibited on the stage, and later a similar ban was put on actors; but these prohibitions appear to have had only a temporary effect. O-Kuni and her immediate successors performed in open air or in booths; but in 1624, the first theatre in Japan was built in Yedo by Saruwaka Kanzaburo. It was frequently burnt down, or else demolished by the authorities, and rebuilt on new sites; but it has not been reconstructed since its destruction by fire three years ago. From 1624 to 1868, this theatre was invariably owned by Saruwaka Kanzaburo, as that was the hereditary name of its thirteen successive proprietors. Within thirty-five years of the first opening of Saruwaka’s theatre, two others were built and owned on the same principle of heredity. In 1877, the latest-built of these was reconstructed in a semi-European style; and on account of the frequency of fires in Tokyo, all theatres that have been recently erected or rebuilt are constructed in a similar style, and surrounded by tall brick walls. There are at present six great and twelve small theatres in Tokyo. Besides the difference in size, the small theatres are distinguished from the others by the use of drop-curtains instead of sliding ones, and the absence of revolving stages. In such low esteem were they held that an actor of a great theatre lost caste by appearing at any of the small theatres. But the latter being more frequently open than the the great theatres have taken to them as they have there a constant occupation, besides receiving a higher consideration from the management. This restriction against small theatres was, therefore, lately removed as it had failed to deter these actors.
GROUND-PLAN OF THE KABUKIZA THEATRE.
Though Saruwaka Kanzaburo had opened his theatre in 1624, in which he himself performed, it was not until half a century later that the first great actor arose. Horikoshi Ebizo, who was born in 1660 of poor but respectable parents, went early on the stage and soon earned a high reputation. Under the stage-name of Ichikawa Danjuro which he assumed at the age of fourteen, he was acknowledged the leading actor of Yedo. He was murdered on the stage in 1704 by a fellow player, with whom he had remonstrated on his licentious life. His son, Kuzo, who was born in 1688, succeeded to the stage-name which he maintained in high repute until his death in 1758. Kuzo made a journey in his youth to the shrine of Narita, some forty miles east of Yedo, where he invoked the god to aid him in his art; and when he afterwards became a famous actor, he took in gratitude the name Narita-ya as his tradename. Every actor has since had three separate names, his private name which seldom becomes public; his stage-name by which he is always known; and his trade-name, which distinguishes his branch from others of the same professional family. Until a few years ago, the actors’ guild was very exclusive; and every Thespian aspirant had first to be apprenticed to an actor, by whom he would be introduced to the stage. The stage-name was hereditary, though in some cases the son’s claim to it would be waived in favour of an abler pupil’s. There was alway a traditional glamour about a great stage-name, which went further in determining its bearer’s position in his profession than his own ability, and was taken more into consideration in assigning to him his rôle in casting a play. It is true, he always tried though with unequal success to act up to his name; but it cannot be denied that it often covered a multitude of defects. It was possible for the bearer of an unnoted name to rise by sheer merit in public esteem; but he could only be promoted, that is to say, allowed an increase of salary, by the elders of the actors’ guild, for every actor had a salary fixed for him, which could but seldom be altered at his own will. Though the actual sum paid him for a run might differ from it, the payments were made to the members of a company in proportion to their fixed salaries. It is the irksomeness of this rule that has driven many able actors to the small theatres where it ceases to be binding. As every aspirant had to be apprenticed, he would naturally betake himself to the most eminent stager; and hence to Ichikawa Danjuro flocked every stage-mad candidate. All Danjuro’s pupils took the stage-surname Ichikawa and the trade-name Naritaya; but some of these, on subsequently making their mark, founded their own histrionic families with new trade-names, which were also bestowed on all their pupils. In the theatre, the audience bawl out the actor’s trade-name where in other countries he would be greeted with plaudits. Beyond this distinction between the various branches of the same professional family, the tradename appears to be of little use.
But to return to Danjuro, the second bearer of that name, being childless, adopted a son to whom he gave his own name; but the young man dying before him, he adopted another, the fourth Danjuro (1711–1788), who was succeeded by his son, the fifth of that name (1741–1806). The sixth (1778–1799) also dying before his father whose name had been transmitted to him in 1790, his nephew (1790–1855) inherited the coveted name. He was the ablest of the seven Danjuro. His son (1823–1854) committed suicide to save his father from reproach; and the name remained in abeyance for nineteen years until it was assumed in 1873 by his half-brother, who was born in 1838. This ninth Danjuro, who worthily upholds the traditions of his family, is acknowledged the greatest living actor in Japan. His rival, Onoye Kikugoro, who is his junior by six years, is the fifth of that name, its founder (1711–1783) having gone on the stage in 1735, so that this nom-de-guerre has been in existence for 160 years, while Danjuro’s has continued with a few interruptions for 220 years. Besides the chief stage names, there are other hereditary ones. Thus, a Danjuro, on transmitting that name in his own lifetime to his son, generally took for himself the nom-de-guerre Ebizo, the private name of the founder of the family. An actor shows the degree of his supposed proficiency in his art by the successive hereditary names he takes. All stage-names, hereditary or other, must, previously to their assumption, be approved by the elders of the actors’ guild.
Where acting is a hereditary profession and every first class actor’s name is backed by stage tradition, there are well-marked gradations in the profession, through which every artiste must pass unless he is fortunate enough to be born in the theatrical aristocracy. The members of this aristocracy are called nadai, that is, those who appear on the play-boards over the entrance to their theatre. Their leaders, the great nadai, number only five in Tokyo, including Danjuro and Kikugoro. There is the middle class, in which we find some of the ablest players, because that is the highest grade to which an actor without family antecedents can rise except in special cases or unless he is adopted into an aristocratic family. In the lowest class are the supernumeraries, who cannot, like their superiors, play at two or more theatres on the same day. The actors’ position in their profession is now determined not only by their salaries, but also by their contributions to the municipal rates, which are divided into eight grades, ranging from twenty sen to five yen per month.
On the front roof of a theatre rested a square cage, the sides of which were wrapped round with a curtain adorned with the proprietor’s crest. Here a drum was beaten every morning of a run to invite spectators, in imitation of the sounding of drums on castle towers to summon retainers. This cage has disappeared from modern theatres. The front entrance of the theatre is several yards wide; and over the doorway is a row of large framed boards depicting the principal scenes of the plays on the stage. As we enter the auditorium by either of the two doorways connecting it with the front entrance, we come upon a large square flooring partitioned into little compartments, nearly a yard square, by boards about a foot high. These compartments are intended to hold four or five persons each, and their number on the ground floor or the pit varies with different theatres, being a hundred or more in the largest. On either side of the pit is an entrance-passage, level with the top of the compartments and running from the front to the stage. This is called the flowery path as its sides were formerly adorned with flowers. The west path is the principal one used, and is generally wider than the other, the stage being always supposed to face the south, whatever its actual bearing may be. There are two or more rows of compartments outside the flowery path, on a slightly higher level than the pit,
THE ENTRANCE-PASSAGE.
while the auditorium is closed on both sides by two-storied rows of boxes constructed in a similar manner to the other compartments. Facing the stage on the second storey are also compartments in tiers rising one behind another, until they are bounded by a long window with vertical iron bars. Outside this window is a passage, into which spectators are admitted to see a single act and are only allowed to witness the next upon further payment. The curtain is drawn from side to side; and when it is withdrawn, the first thing to be noticed is a large turn-table in the centre of the stage. By means of this revolving stage as it is called, scenes can be changed without first drawing the curtain. A whole scene set on one semicircle revolves to present a new one on the other. The turn-table, which is level with the rest of the stage, revolves on a strong wooden pivot, worked by men in the space under the boards, expressively named “Hell.” There are two entrances to the stage near the proscenium, and over the east entrance is a perch hidden by a screen, where the gidayu-singer sits and sings when his services are required. On the second and third stories behind the stage are the dressing rooms where rehearsals also take place. Just behind the pit is a line of compartments of various heights, occupied by those connected with the management, especially the representatives of the capitalist who runs the play; for nearly every theatre is built under special contract by a capitalist, though nominally owned by the registered proprietor; and when a play is
THE REVOLVING STAGE (HALF-ROUND).
put on the stage, the same or another capitalist provides the money for it and divides the proceeds with the proprietor. Most proprietors of theatres are heavily in debt.
A theatre was formerly open from dawn till close upon midnight. Women usually made preparations over night for going thither and even sat up all night so as not to be caught asleep at dawn when the drum summoned them to the theatre. But in Tokyo the Metropolitan Police Board restricted nine years ago the maximum duration of a performance to eight hours, to the great dissatisfaction of the confirmed play-goers who consider themselves cheated of their money’s worth by this limitation. In the country, however, the good old leisurely hours appear to be still retained. As a performance, then, lasts eight hours even in Tokyo, play-going is really a regular day’s business.
As compartments in a theatre hold four or five persons each, it is usual to make up a party and book a whole compartment through a teahouse connected with the theatre, for every theatre has many dependent teahouses whose business it is to provide their patrons with everything they require in the theatre through the long hours; but those who are willing to be put in the same compartment with strangers go straight to the theatre and thereby escape the commission levied by the teahouse on all its provisions. The spectators eat their noon or evening meals at the theatre, or at the teahouse between the acts; but confectionery and sake are freely partaken while the play is going on. Indeed, many male play-goers cannot enjoy a play unless they drink at the same time, and they have often been known to turn their backs upon the stage and, overcome with the sake, add their own music to the gidayu-singer’s. Play-going is, therefore, also an expensive pastime.
It is seldom that a whole day’s performance is taken up by a single play. There are generally portions of two or three different plays run on the stage on the same day.
The drama is of three kinds, historical, o-iye, and domestic. Historical plays deal with warlike and unsettled times, the favourite subjects being those connected with the events immediately preceding the establishment of the Shogunate (1185), the futile attempts made by Kusunoki, father (1294–1336) and son (1327–1349) to re-establish the authority of the Emperor, and the civil wars of the sixteenth century. Under the Tokugawa shogun, the country enjoyed peace; but in the families of the great territorial lords frequent attempts were made to supplant the rightful heir, which gave rise to great dissensions within their territories. Plays dealing with such local troubles are numerous, being known as the drama of o-iye or noble houses. The third kind treat of the common people and their quarrels, troubles, and sufferings. There is a marked distinction in the dresses used in these several plays; for in the first we find armour and martial costume such as is worn in camp, in the second the kamishimo, the old ceremonial dress under Tokugawa, and the everyday clothes of the common people in the third. It is usual to have first an historical or o-iye play (or a part of it), and next a domestic drama, with a scene between the two or at the end of the performance, in which dancing forms the chief feature. By these means the theatre seeks to please every mood of its audience.
There are, as we have already said, players of both sexes in Japan; but they perform in separate theatres. Attempts have recently been made with but partial success to bring them together. In all the great theatres, only actors are to be seen. Many of them, therefore, take female parts, and not a few make a speciality of them. In the feudal times such actors used even in private life to affect the female attire and manners, but a prohibition against the assumption of the clothes of the opposite sex, issued since the Restoration, has put a stop to the custom. The skill with which actors impersonate female characters on the stage is certainly remarkable. Japanese actors declaim on the boards in a voice of a peculiar register, which makes it easier to mimic female tones than if they spoke in their natural voice. Every actor has his stage voice, a close imitation of which is reckoned a great accomplishment by some men, and even affords them a means of livelihood.
The Japanese histrionic art depends for effect on gestures to a greater degree than the European. This is due partly to the preference people naturally evince for action, and partly to the fact that as in the gidayu it is more affecting to describe the actions and emotions of the puppets than to give their speech, the singing during their movements is far in excess of the dialogue. These traditions of the puppet shows have been transferred to the stage; and as the gidayu-singer explains the actions and inmost thoughts of the characters, there is no need on the Japanese stage for “asides.” The great fault of the gidayu-singer at the theatre is, however, that his excessive explicitness in describing the least emotion deprives the actor of the means of directly communicating his feeling to the audience, and that explanation which was necessary to arouse their sympathy in the case of puppets becomes
THE “BLACKAMOORS” ON THE STAGE.
tedious when the actor on the stage has to exaggerate and prolong his emotions to fit in with the music and song of the gidayu-singer. His originality is smothered by time-honoured conventionalities.
The prompter appears in a strange form in the Japanese theatre. There are to be seen flitting about on the stage men clothed in black and with black veils over their faces. These “blackamoors,” as they are called, are supposed by a stage fiction to be invisible. They squat or stand behind the actors they prompt during the first days of a play. They adjust any derangement of the actors’ dresses on the stage, or push a cushion or a stool to an important character when he is about to sit. Any stage property, maybe a sword, a screen, or a dress, when done with, is spirited away; or when a character is killed and his corpse encumbers the boards, the luckless actor is dragged away by the legs or carried bodily out. The blackamoor, in short, though too much en evidence to sustain the fiction of his invisibility, is useful in keeping the stage in order.
The usual run of a play is thirty-five days, on which the stage expenses and actors’ salaries are calculated; but that limit may be altered according to the public reception of the play in question.
