Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/221

 later period, the theatrical tendency became supreme and the romantic melodrama of the modern Japanese stage was evolved." Farther on Mr. Chamberlain describes the manner of representing this lyric drama. "The stage, which has remained unaltered in every respect from the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the early dramatists Seama and Otourmi acted at Kiyauto before the then Shiyauguñ (Shogun or Tycoon, as Europeans usually pronounce it) Yoshimasa, is a square wooden room, open upon all sides but one and supported on pillars, the side of the square being about eighteen English feet. It is surrounded by a quaint roof somewhat resembling those to be seen on the Japanese Buddhist temples, and is connected with the green-room by a gallery some nine feet wide. Upon this gallery part of the action occasionally takes place. Added on to the back of the square stage is a narrow space where sits the orchestra, consisting of one flute-player, two performers on instruments which in the absence of a more fitting name may be called tambourines, and one beater of the drum, while the chorus, whose number is not fixed, squat on the ground to the right of the spectator. In a line with the chorus, between it and the audience, sits the less important of the two actors during the greater portion of the piece. (Two was the number of the actors during the golden days of the art.) The back of the stage, the only side not open to the air, is painted with a pine tree, in accordance with ancient usage, while, equally in conformity with established rules, three small pine trees are planted in the court which divides the gallery from the space occupied by the less distinguished portion of the audience. The covered place for the audience, who all sit on the mats according to the immemorial custom