Page:Sketches of Tokyo Life (1895).djvu/50

30 lords frequent attempts were made to supplant the rightful heir, which gave rise to great dissensions within their territories. Plays dealing with such local troubles are numerous, being known as the drama of o-iye or noble houses. The third kind treat of the common people and their quarrels, troubles, and sufferings. There is a marked distinction in the dresses used in these several plays; for in the first we find armour and martial costume such as is worn in camp, in the second the kamishimo, the old ceremonial dress under Tokugawa, and the everyday clothes of the common people in the third. It is usual to have first an historical or o-iye play (or a part of it), and next a domestic drama, with a scene between the two or at the end of the performance, in which dancing forms the chief feature. By these means the theatre seeks to please every mood of its audience.

There are, as we have already said, players of both sexes in Japan; but they perform in separate theatres. Attempts have recently been made with but partial success to bring them together. In all the great theatres, only actors are to be seen. Many of them, therefore, take female parts, and not a few make a speciality of them. In the feudal times such actors used even in private life to affect the female attire and manners, but a prohibition against the assumption of the clothes of the opposite sex, issued since the Restoration, has put a stop to the custom. The skill with which actors impersonate female characters on the stage is certainly remarkable. Japanese actors declaim on the boards in a voice of a peculiar register, which makes it easier to mimic female tones than if they spoke in their natural voice. Every actor has his stage voice, a close imitation of which is reckoned a great accomplishment by some men, and even affords them a means of livelihood.

The Japanese histrionic art depends for effect on gestures to a greater degree than the European. This is due partly to the preference people naturally evince for action, and partly to the fact that as in the gidayu it is more affecting to