Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/118

 women. In the interludes, where jugglers and acrobats entertain the audience, women are sometimes seen, and, in time, plays will be cast for both sexes, and female stars will shine. The infant prodigy is known to the Japanese stage, and in some wonderfully pretty and affecting scenes in the “Ronins” little children utter their lines and go through their parts with great naturalness.

The great theatre of Tokio is the Shintoiniza, a long, gabled building, ornamented above the row of entrance doors by pictures of scenes from the play. The street is lined with tea-houses, or restaurants, for a play is not a hap-hazard two-hour after-dinner incident. A man goes for the day, carefully making up his theatre party beforehand, the plays generally beginning at eleven o’clock in the morning, and ending at eight or nine in the evening. After a short run the hours during which the great actors appear and the great stage effects are made become known, and the spectator may time his visit accordingly. It is bad form for a Japanese of position to go to the theatre door, pay for a box. and enter it. He must send a servant, at least a day beforehand, to one of the tea-houses near the theatre to engage its attentions for the day. and through its agency secure a box. The tea-house people are the ticket speculators in league with the box-office. At the proper hour, the party assemble at the tea-house, and give orders for the lunch, dinner, and frequent teas to be served during the day. The tea-house attendants conduct them to their box. and at each intermission come to see what is wanted, bringing in at the dinner-hour the large lacquer chow boxes with their courses of viands, that their patrons may dine comfortably where they sit. Everybody smokes, and each box has its little tabako bon, with its cone of glowing coals to light the tiny pipes, the rat-tat of the pipes, as the ashes are knocked out, often making a chorus to the action. 102