Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/140

 gerated, but reaching, on the whole, to an extraordinarily high standard of mimetic art. That is the natural result of a system which assigns as much importance to the mimetic side of the drama as to the spoken. It is probably safe to affirm that the Japanese are the greatest mimics in the world.

There is, however, one feature which contrasts strangely with this obedience to the verities. The mechanics of the drama are suffered to obtrude themselves upon public observation through the medium of stage attendants. These persons, draped and veiled in "invisible" colours, are appropriately called "blacks" (kurombo). They openly assist at the intricate transformations of costume occasionally demanded by the progress of the play, and they clear the stage of encumbrances which, in an Occidental theatre, would necessitate a tableau and fall of the curtain. Thus a veiled figure may be seen, now aiding a dancer to emerge, chrysalis-like, from a sombre surcoat into a butterfly robe; now holding a little curtain of black cloth between the audience and a supposed corpse while the latter removes itself. Such discordant notes destroy the realistic harmony of the general action. They are, as will readily be conjectured, defects that have descended from the days of marionettes, and within the past few years they have almost disappeared.

In speaking of the Japanese drama a very notable point has to be recorded: the same plays