Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/116

 That great classic, the affecting history of the “Forty-seven Ronins,” is always popular, and the crack-brained heroisms of the days of chivalry fire the Japanese heart notwithstanding its passion for the foreign and modern. The trials, tortures, and miracles of the early days of Buddhism, and the warlike histories of the great feudal houses, furnish tragedies and sensational and spectacular plays without end. There are, also, romantic melodramas, emotional dramas, and comedies of delicious humor and satire.

New plays, while rare, are not theatrical events, and first nights by no means indicate success or failure. The play is tried on the audience, changed, cut, and altered as actors, manager, scene-painter, carpenter, and patrons desire, without consideration of the author’s rights or feelings.

I once asked a great star who had written his play.

“I do not understand,” said the tragedian; and a bystander explained that the manager had cut reports of a theft, a murder, and a shipwreck from a newspaper, and, discussing them with the star, evolved the outlines of a connected play and decided on the principal scenes and effects. A hack writer was then called in, who, under dictation, shaped the plot and divided it into scenes. The managerial council elaborated it further, allotting the parts, and the star then composed his lines to suit himself. In rehearsal the play was rounded, the diction altered, and each actor directed to write out his own part, after which a full transcript was made for the prompter.

As to the authorship of the play of the “Forty-seven Ronins,” he said: “That is our country’s history. We all know the story of their lives and glorious deaths, and many novelists and poets have written of them.”

“But who made it into a drama?”

“Oh, every theatre has its own way of representing 100