Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/109

Rh spectacles, without cohesion, depth, or unity. They are fascinating pictures of a deeply loved and daily vanishing past, but drama of a high sort they are not. Is there no movement, it will be asked, among the more educated classes to raise the standard of art, to create a drama which shall appeal less to the eye and more to the intelligence?

Yes; there are two forces at work which deserve credit for their energy in what is almost an impossible task until the conditions of theatrical representation shall be radically altered. How is the action to be compressed within reasonable limits when the audience demand a whole day's entertainment? How is closer realism to be achieved by the actor when the never silent orchestra compels him to pitch his voice in a falsetto key? How are women's parts to be adequately rendered so long as men monopolise the stage? How are women to take their places when the size of the theatre and the length of the performance put a prohibitive strain on their physical powers? And how is the author to complete a masterpiece when manager, actor, and musician claim the right to interpolate scenes, business, and melody for the irrelevant amusement of the uncritical? These questions must be answered before reform can make headway. In the meantime, a glance at what reformers have tried to accomplish is only due to their laudable endeavour.

Rather more than ten years ago, when enthusiasm for Western things was at its height, a species of independent theatre, calling itself the Sōshi-Shibai, was started with a loud flourish of trumpets in Tōkyō. The promoters were sōshi (ex-students), who, as actors or authors, or both, proclaimed their intention of revolutionising the stage and informing it with