Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/59

 RELIGIOUS PLAYS

traveller who witnesses a "Nō Dance," hastily improvised for his amusement at the Maple Club of Tōkyō, or who chances upon a pantomimic duologue in grotesque costume, rendered on a rough platform to divert the crowd before a temple at the matsuri—half fair, half festival—can really form no idea of the exquisite little dramas which for more than five centuries have been performed privately in the houses of Japanese nobles and are still enacted at rare intervals to an invited audience. The common term "Nō Dance" is rather misleading, since it only suggests the rhythmic posturing of the characters—very graceful, it is true, and pregnant with meaning for the initiated—but ignores other factors, such as the words, the story, and the music, which contribute quite as memorably to the total effect. Operetta will not do, since the choric strains, which stimulate attention and intensify emotion with their staccato accompaniment, are subordinate throughout. If, then, that may be styled a play which revolves on a single episode and relates to no more than three or four persons, a very close parallel lies between these and the religious plays of Europe. In both you find the same reverence for the