Read Ebook: The Girl and Her Religion by Slattery Margaret

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Scene from Yotsuya Kaidan, or The Ghost of Yotsuya, by Namboku Tsuruya. Onoe Baiko is seen as the disfigured O-Iwa, and Onoe Matsusuke the kind old masseur who holds up the mirror that she may learn the truth 294

Banzuiin Chobei, a man of the people, r?le by Matsumoto Koshiro 300

Nakamura Kichiyemon as Sakura Sogoro, the Village Head who his life for the good of the people 302

Nakamura Fukusuke of Osaka as a belle of the gay quarters. Letters are made as long as possible to produce the better effect 304

Onoe Baiko as the demon woman in Ibaraki, escaping with her severed arm 306

Matsumoto Koshiro and Onoe Baiko in Seikinoto, the music-drama piece, in which Baiko appeared as the spirit of the cherry tree 316

Ritsu-Ko Mori, the leading actress of the Tokyo stage 347

The Imperial Theatre of Tokyo, completed in 1911. The building withstood the earthquake shocks of the great disaster of 1923, but the interior was destroyed by fire. It has now been entirely restored. The Imperial is becoming an international theatre centre, and has welcomed actors, musicians, and dancers from England, America, Russia, Italy, and China 368

Onoe Baiko, leading actor of the Imperial Theatre in an onnagata r?le 370

The new Kabuki-za. Entrance Hall of the new Kabuki-za. The new Kabuki-za, with a seating capacity of 4000, which was opened on January 6, 1925. Under construction at the time of the earthquake disaster, September 1, 1923, the concrete structure remained intact. Japanese architectural features have been used throughout the Kabuki-za, and, rising out of the ruins of the city, it is one of the most imposing buildings in Tokyo 374

INTRODUCTION

Interest in the Theatre, and in the arts and crafts which belong to it, is to-day so lively and so general that it is rather surprising how little has been written about the popular theatre in Japan. There have been several books on the N?, that unique form of drama which rigidly maintains unaltered all the traditions and fine conventions of the medieval period. But this stationary, aristocratic art has never entered into the life of the Japanese people as has the Kabuki theatre, with which the present volume is concerned. In January of this year was opened the new building of the Kabuki-za, rising from the ashes and ruins of the capital. It is a huge building, with a seating capacity of four thousand. The Japanese cannot live without the theatre: it is in a most real sense part of the national life. Through the theatre the least educated become familiar with the heroic past of their country, its legends and its actual history, so abounding in dramatic episodes "where duty and inclination come nobly to the grapple". It stimulates and sustains their imaginative life; it is a bond of union for all sorts and conditions of men. Such a theatre is worth knowing about; and the art of this theatre is, in all its details, of extraordinary interest. No nation is so thorough as the Japanese in any art they undertake; and the Kabuki theatre exacts the most prolonged and rigorous training from childhood in those who serve it; their art is of the most finished. Technically, also, the devices and conventions of Kabuki scenes--the revolving stage, for instance--offer points of comparison and contrast with the European theatre which we can profitably study, as readers of this book will discover.

The writer of this book has lived for years in Japan, has assiduously frequented the theatre , and has made herself intimately acquainted with its history. Collectors and students of Japanese colour-prints know how entwined with that popular art is the life of the theatre. Some of the finest designers of those beautiful prints devoted their lives to depicting the actors of the day in their most successful scenes. And print-collectors have long been in want of a book which would tell them about the famous actors, whether of masculine or feminine parts , and about the plays in which they appeared. Only quite recently has it been discovered that the actor-prints can very often be dated by the help of theatre-records; and thus we are enabled to distinguish between the different actors of stage-families bearing the same name. In this book one's natural curiosity about the lives and personalities of the successive Danjuros and other great actors is in large measure satisfied: and I am sure that print-collectors will welcome this illuminating aid to their study. But it is to those interested in the theatre as theatre that these pages will appeal above all.

Many of us remember the performances of Sada Yacco and her husband, Mr. Kawakami, in London, now many years ago. They gave us just a glimpse of the fascination of Japanese acting: but they represented an experimental effort--Sada Yacco herself was an actress only by accident--and in the West we have never seen any true representation of the national drama of Japan. I cannot but express the hope, which I am sure will be shared by those who read these pages, that before long Tokyo may be persuaded to send a company to Europe, and at last allow us to enjoy and understand something of the scrupulous and intense dramatic art, so rich in tradition yet so alive to the finger-tips, of the Japanese popular theatre.

LAURENCE BINYON.

KABUKI

KABUKI

Solid attention from the close-set heads of the playgoers kneeling on their cushions in the boxes of the pit to the crowded galleries on three sides, and enthusiasm displayed in the tachimi, or standing-to-see place near the ceiling, where patient people remain on their feet for long hours--the keenest critics as well as the warmest supporters of the actors--such is the scene witnessed daily in the theatre of Japan.

The Occidental cannot long withstand the mass psychology of this audience; that is, if he makes an attempt to share its point of view and appreciate the excellent things provided upon the stage. He feels its subtle unity, its amazing cohesiveness; he is carried away by an unseen stream, engrossed, engulfed, and wakes up with a start to find himself an entity again; or else, detaching himself from the atmosphere in which he has been immersed, wonders at this overflowing expression of Japanese life.

Statesmen, publicists, and editors of the Occident wax eloquent about Japan and her problems, but here is something they quite ignore and leave out of consideration, this manifestation of the pure spirit of the people with minds relaxed enjoying the theatre art that pleased their ancestors.

Seekers after mystery will not find it here, for there is nothing that is inscrutable. Merely the people laughing or crying as the play proceeds, spontaneous in their approval of the triumph of right over wrong, absorbed in the clash of evil and good,--the same theatre material that has served to amuse and attract mankind for the last two thousand years.

Just the people, displaying depths of human nature, undisturbed by the questions that vex the politicians, the propagandists, the militarists, and other dread phantoms that cast their dark shadows over a sunny, smiling world.

The creative spirit belongs to no one land or people, and its expression becomes the treasure of all. Kabuki, the popular stage of Japan, is the result of three hundred years of intensive cultivation. Its genius and successful achievements belong to a common sum total, and are a contribution to the world's theatre. Its actors are members of the same fraternity as those of the West, and claim kinship with them.

There is something poignant in the endeavours of generations of Kabuki players who obeyed the voice within them, asking no acknowledgement, expecting no return, doing their duty as they knew it without the least idea of the vague western hemisphere--completely unknown to their brothers in other lands.

For more than three hundred years these actors have lived and had their being in their own narrow spheres. True to the best theatre instinct within them, they bequeathed their accumulated treasures of style and taste, the purest and most varied of theatre material, to their successors, the modern actors, who, so far as the West is concerned, remain obscure, unvalued, and unappreciated, even as did their ancestors when Japan was isolated and had no relations with outside countries. Yet their art was good, and will one day gain recognition. They have carried on their traditions unswervingly; they are the custodians of all that pertains to the theatre of the present, and the future looms large with possibilities.

There are three separate and distinct theatres in Japan: the N?, or classic drama, with its masked figures, perfected five hundred years ago; Ningyo-shibai, or the Doll-theatre, where marionettes interpret complicated ballad-dramas; and Kabuki, the popular theatre, in which male players reign supreme. These are the Japanese theatre arts, interwoven into the very fabric of society, the amusements of the people that reflect their psychology, tastes, and aspirations.

The N? became crystallised into an art at the time of the Shogun Yoshimitsu . Long before Yoshimitsu held sway, the country had been brimful of song, dance, poetry, minstrelsy, and the three theatres of modern Japan may be said to have inherited the accumulated tendencies of a thousand years.

Deeply rooted in the people was the love of theatrical entertainments which were held in connection with the festivals of shrines and temples. From these performances developed companies of players who formed hereditary actor families, the members of which were regarded as belonging to the common people.

When Yoshimitsu saw a performance at a Kyoto temple that pleased him he gave his patronage to the players, and at one bound they were elevated to a new position. It was at this time that the N? was brought to a state of perfection, and the support and encouragement given by so highly placed a personage resulted in the monopoly of this theatre by the aristocracy, to be reserved henceforward for their own use and entertainment.

During the long Tokugawa regime, the N? continued under the protection of the Shogun, and was patronised by the various daimyo. When the shogunate fell, the N? almost went out of existence, but slowly regained its prestige, and within recent years it has attained unprecedented popularity. It is regarded as a means of culture, and is claimed by increasing numbers of intellectuals. Yet it still retains its aloofness from the common theatre, which it continues to disdain as cheap, vulgar, and sensational. In spite of the fact that it has come to a standstill and lives on the past, its influence is very great.

As an expression of the human spirit by means of inanimate figures, the Doll-theatre of Japan is unique. It is a surprise to find this jewel of art in Osaka, the city of smoke-stacks--an art that has been alive in Japan for more than three hundred years, but is at present practically confined to one small ding would have helped.

One rejoices as he remembers the thousands of pure, sweet, wholesome girls who have been privileged to enjoy the results of a long ancestry unstained by weakness and sin, the results of training, guidance and protection, the opportunity for healthful, normal living, for pleasures and the satisfaction of human friendship and love. Our country looks today with increasing hopefulness to these privileged girls for the solution of many of the problems of the other girl. Our country looks to them for another generation of privileged girls even stronger and wiser than they.

One of the greatest of the problems with which our country is concerned today, the solution of which involves every phase of social, religious and economic life, is the providing of ways and means by which the unprivileged girl may, in large numbers, be promoted into the privileged class.

THE GIRL WHO IS EASILY LED

She is a chameleon sort of girl but she is not rare. So often she is sweet and lovable. Almost without exception she is obliging, a jolly companion, fearless and frank. One often finds her a girl of talent and natural ability. She is the very opposite of the indifferent girl for she responds to everything. The girl she will finally become depends upon the companions whose lead she follows. Her safety lies in the establishment of the habit of going in the right way. She is the girl who most needs care and guardianship. So much depends upon her choice of friends that parents and teachers must be wise for her.

A little ten-year-old, in whom all her teachers were interested because of her versatility and quick response to every interest, moved into a new neighborhood. Some weeks later because of her ability to learn rapidly she was put into a higher grade. Her new home and new classmates in a short time entirely changed the character of her environment. Before long the girl herself began to show the result of the change. She had always been too much interested in her studies to waste time or disobey the school rules. Following the leadership of some of the newly made friends she entered into all the little conspiracies of a group of girls and boys who made things hard for the teacher, a rather weak disciplinarian. One day, the girl hitherto perfectly honest, told a lie to get out of the trouble into which the following of the new leaders had brought her. It troubled her conscience and she cried on the way home from school, but her companions laughed at her, told her she was "all right," and had stood by them splendidly. They made her feel heroic and she dried her eyes and stifled her desire to tell her mother. Before the year was over the child had entirely changed. Her studies suffered, she seemed to lose her ambition, her naturalness and spontaneity vanished. Her mother began to discover increasing untruthfulness. One day, toward the close of the school year, the child asked to wear her best dress to school, saying there was to be an entertainment. There was no entertainment. Instead there was a party at the home of one of the girls of whom her mother disapproved. The party began later than they had planned and it was nearly six before the child reached home. She found her mother greatly troubled and said quite glibly that she had stayed after school to help the teacher. Next day the mother called at the school to remonstrate with the teacher for keeping the child so often and so late to "help" her. Then the whole truth came out and the mother was dismayed. She felt that the matter was so serious that she must remove her daughter at once from her companions and before school opened in the fall the family had moved back to their former neighborhood and the parents were permitted to send the little girl to another school where new associates were carefully chosen. Before she left that grammar school she had recovered her frank, sweet spirit, her interest in her studies returned, and surrounded by a group of fine boys and girls she went through the high school with the love and respect of teachers and companions.

This child is the type of many, who as early as ten years and younger, are so easily led that their natural tendencies toward good are wholly transformed by association with evil companions whose strong personality and power of leadership can so easily turn the weak wills into the wrong pathway.

Parents and teachers cannot be too careful of the companions of a girl of vacillating, easy-going, versatile temperament, for they may ruin or make her.

When Leonora moved from the great manufacturing city, which had been her home for fourteen years, to the home of her aunt, in a quiet suburb, where the children attending the high school were from homes of real culture and refinement, she was disconsolate. Voices, language, games, manner of recitation, behavior on the school grounds and street, perplexed her. She seemed lost in her new environment. She had never been a leader but had followed with all her heart. Her playground had been the street. She had enjoyed boisterous good times, had patronized moving pictures of every sort, had entered into the mischief of "the crowd" always close to the leader. In a pathetic letter to one of her chums she said that at the very first opportunity she should run away and be with them all again. She characterized the beautiful suburb with its neatly kept lawns and pretty homes as "a dead old hole" from which she could not wait to escape. Still, her aunt's home, the new wardrobe containing the lovely dresses, becoming hats and coats, for which she had always longed, tempted her to remain. One day, early in October, her classmates made the discovery that she could sing. She had quite a remarkable voice for a girl of her age. The teacher of music became her interested friend and found she could play unusually well, though mostly "by ear." The leader among the girls who "adored" any one who could sing adopted Leonora as her special friend. The new wardrobe added greatly to her attractiveness, and her aunt's social position opened many doors for her. Her new friend's mother was pleased with her daughter's choice of a companion despite the lack of good breeding and lapses in English.

Leonora became the obedient and devoted follower of the new girl friend and the influence of the music teacher was indeed remarkable. Almost as by magic Leonora dropped the coarse slang, loud talking and shouting of her companions, who in the city had been termed "wild" and adopted the ways of the new leader. At the end of two years it would have been quite impossible to recognize in the pretty, interesting, well-mannered girl of sixteen, who sang so sweetly, the uncultured, ill-mannered, slangy girl of fourteen.

For a girl of Leonora's type the impress of the right environment, the guidance of the right hand, means everything. To discover such girls, to open the way for the working of new friendships, which shall furnish new leadership for them, is a fine task and a great pleasure for the lovers of girlhood.

But this is not enough. Perhaps the greatest steps toward the safe-guarding of the easily led were taken when the carefully supervised public playground and the school gardens were started and the women police were sent out into the streets of cities.

A strong, wise, sane woman who is neither a prude nor a crank can do more toward preventing the first steps into forbidden ways than those interested in great city problems have yet dreamed. The day will come when these women will make the arm of the law an efficient friend of the weak and unprotected girl and give all the positive, helpful agencies an opportunity to strengthen her against temptation.

I shall never forget my visit that Sunday afternoon to a detention school for delinquent girls. Over in the corner of the room where the afternoon service was to be held was the piano, the orchestra, made up of members of the school, was gathering. There was a cornetist, two or three violins followed, then a banjo and guitar. The service that day was to be a great event, for the wonderful woman in charge of that school who had done away with the cells, taken down the great spiked iron fence and planted flowers in its stead had persuaded board, committee and municipality to permit her to follow out the one great desire of her heart. The girls were to wear on Sundays and other dress occasions white Peter Thompson suits, big bows of ribbon in their hair and shining, well-fitted shoes.

After the service they filed out, put on their long checked aprons and got supper. We saw the beds in the wards where all the new comers must sleep, then the smaller rooms with six and four beds, the still smaller with two and the honor rooms which a girl might occupy alone and might arrange as she chose. There were flowers in all the single rooms and pictures on the walls.

It almost seemed as we walked along the edge of the drive over the walk the girls had laid, that we were leaving a boarding school where girls were being taught household economics and the arts and crafts.

The woman who had wrought the miracle which had been wrought in that school stood at the end of the drive as we left and in response to the exclamation, "It seems impossible that these girls could ever have been guilty of the deeds the records show!" she answered, "These girls are not vicious. It is after all a question of leadership and they followed the wrong leaders." She paused a moment, looked back at the buildings, and then said softly, "God pity the girl who is easily led." And in our hearts we echoed her prayer.

THE GIRL WHO IS MISUNDERSTOOD

Every girl in the world I suppose has sometime in her life felt that she was misunderstood, that every one looked at her through the wrong glasses, that no one saw her good qualities or appreciated her abilities and that all with whom she had to do interpreted her at her worst. The cry of a girl's heart for someone who understands is the cry of humanity. No one can perfectly understand another, therefore only God can be just. And so in a sense all girls are misunderstood. But there are special types of girls who suffer more from being misunderstood by their families, neighbors, friends, and by strangers than do others.

There is the self-conscious girl. Shy and made awkward by her shyness, unable to forget that she has hands and feet, painfully aware that she must walk while others watch her, that she is expected to say something and those who listen will criticize, she suffers intensely. The great onrush of self overwhelms her, she stammers, blushes, fingers and eyes help to reveal her suffering and as soon as possible she beats a retreat. How intense her sufferings are only those who know by experience can say. The shy and self-conscious girl will always be misunderstood. People may be very sorry for her but they do not understand her. She needs a friend who has passed through the self-conscious stage to sympathize with and help her, or some girl quick to see her good qualities who can show confidence in her and smooth over the awkward places for her, until she becomes convinced that she is like other girls and that she can do as they do.

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