Page:Sketches of Tokyo Life (1895).djvu/27

Rh lantern séances, and puppet shows. Among these kinds of entertainments, the first three take the precedence in popular favour, and of these again the rakugoka’s tales are the most widely patronised.

The gidayu-singer is, however, almost as great a public favourite as the rakugoka. The gidayu, or lyrical drama, owes its rise to puppet-shows, and as the earlier dramatists wrote exclusively for these shows, it was the gidayu-singer’s duty to speak for the puppets and

explain their movements and emotions in song. The singer is in Tokyo without puppets when he appears at the halls. The best puppet-shows are now to be seen in Osaka, the home of the gidayu. The singer sometimes plays himself, but is more frequently accompanied by a samisen player, who sits on his left. He always sings in the old formal dress called kamishimo, with the libretto on the book-rest before him. A single performance consists of one act of a play or even one portion of an act. In a gidayu entertainment, six or seven performances are given, the singers