JAPAN'S THEATRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 150, 28 June 1938, Page 4

JAPAN'S THEATRE

SURPRISING FACTS INFLUENCE OF THE WES s REVOLT OF WRITEI i * In the organisation of its mo - theatre, as in the organisation of : 1 of its modern institutions, Japan " taken America as its model, writes 1 mer Rice, the famous playwrighl « the "New York Times." Show 1 ; ness, at least in its commercial asp : is run on strictly American lines. ■ commercialism is most of the si The only two groups of theatres w , have escaped commercial domina I are, oddly enough, the oldest and • newest; the classical Noh thea ; which appeal only to the schol and the patrician, and the experin tal and left-wing theatres, which peal only tu tne cosmopolites and r cals. (In other words, the audiei are so limited that it would not anyone to commercialise the theati With these two artistically imp ant but financially negligible exi tions, the Japanese theatre is enti: in the hands of two large syndica the Sho-Chiku Producing Company the Takarazuka Producing Comp; Even the Kabuki theatres, which v. formerly managed by "families" of tors who handed on their art fi generation to generation, are now c trolled by the syndicates and the re independent actors are now merely aried employees. OWNED BY BROTHERS. The larger of the syndicates, the S Chiku, is owned by two brothers (fc familiar it all sounds!), M. Shirai anc Otani. (I do not know why they h, different names. ) I met one of then: Osaka, and the other, in Tokio—v affable gentlemen, both, and jus proud of their modern and wi equipped theatres. This syndicate controls about per'cent, of the amusement busin in Japan. It owns thirty or fo playhouses in Tokio, Kioto, Osa Nagoya, Kobe, and other cities; 700 800 motion picture houses throughi the empire, several motion picti studios, and operates numerous theal cal producing units which have a tc permanent payroll of about 2000 i tors! (At least, the actor in Japan 1 a steady job and a certain amount economiq security.) The products include, besides the Kabuki plays a the classical Osaka puppets, revu vaudeville, modern Japanese plays, a the famous Girls' Opera Companies which I shall have more to say late The theatres of both syndicates e large, clean, bright, attractive, and w equipped. Several have seating cat cities ranging from 2000 to 3000. T stages are very large, in some i stances ninety feet wide by fifty f« deep (as compared with about 36 by in the average New York playhousi Most of the theatres have revolvi stages which are used constantly a; effectively, often without lowering t curtain. (The Japanese claim to ha invented the revolving stage, as wi js the "Flowery Way" or runway. LAVISH PRODUCTIONS. The productions are lavish and e pertly staged. Considerable taste ai ngenuity—and sometimes real beau —are displayed in the costumes at ;ettings. Musicians and choruses a tvell trained and in the revues ar nodern plays the general level of ac ng and singing is about up to tl American or English standard; neith rery good nor very bad. The Kabul if course, is a special art, not compa ible to anything in our theatre. Performances usually begin at 4 < in the afternoon and go on until : ir 11. Each production consists i our or five short plays of varyir ypes, ranging from Kabuki dances 1 nodern comedies. The intervals ai ang and many of the theatres contai estaurants, tearooms, and comfortab! ecreation and rest rooms. It is a ather gay and friendly. The Takarazuka syndicate, th ounger and smaller of the two, opei tes along much the same lines as th ho-Chiku. It has its headquarters ; 'akarazuka, "the pleasure centre c apan," a hot-spring resort in the hir bout half-way between Kobe an Isaka and readily accessible to bot ities as well as to Kioto. The Takarazuka Hot Spring Housi ) quote from its prospectus, "include iree theatres, three restaurants, an vo public baths surrounded by th una Park, Zoological Garden, Botan il Garden, and Library." There ar Iso "a children's playground, ping ong and billiard-rooms, a phot udio, barber shop, beauty parlour, ani special tearoom." Millions of peopl isit this place every year, and th leatres draw large crowds. GIRLS' OPERA COMPANIES. At Takarazuka we not only saw : ;rformance by one of the Girls' Open ompanies but visited the school hese Girls' Opera Companies, which believe, are an institution peculiar t< ipan, sprang up some fifteen o; /enty years ago, and have completely iptivated the Japanese theatre-goinj iblic, particularly the younger people As the name implies, they are com >sed entirely of girls, most of their their early twenties or even younger ley present various types of enter inment, including even adaptation: Kabuki plays accompanied by music a distinctly modern Western type the Kabuki theatre, the female parts e played by men, but here, by a rious inversion, the male parts arc ayed by girls! In an effort to discover the reason r this, I questioned innumerable rsons and received a variety of swers, none of them very satisfacry. The most frequent one was that ere was a "moral danger" in having xed companies of young people. But ice the musicians, directors, and lining school instructors are nearly men, this seemed scarcely a conicing reason. As a matter of fact, jre seem to be other "moral dangers" plicit in the present system. The >st popular of the actresses are those 10 affect a boyish dress and manner d play the romantic young heroes of 3 elaborate musical revues which ; the principal productions of these npanies. Their very entrance and if is greeted by wild bursts of apmse, and their performance is conntly interrupted by cries of approval d shouting of .their popular nickmes. ' A STAR MOBBED. \Ky room in the Imperial Hotel at kio (an architectural chamber of rrors, designed by our own Frank >yd Wright) happened to face the kio theatre of the Takarazuka Comly. One afternoon, I was drawn to i window by a commotion in the cet and saw one of these girl stars irly mobbed by a crowd of several ndred enthusiastic admirers. In ler to escape she had to take refuge a neighbouring restaurant, but the ?et was blocked by a swarm of girls 1 women for nearly an hour, 'he musical revues presented by se companies (of which I saw two three) are sedulous imitations of Dadway. They employ—and very actively—all the devices and formufamiliar to patrons of the Music « and the Winter Garden. The music ] either an imitation or a bodily ap-

propriation of the creations of Tit Pan Alley. American readers whc think of Japan in terms of samura; travelling about in palanquins, 01 geishas strumming the samisen in i rain of falling cherry blossoms, may bt a little startled by the following synopsis of a "grand revue" in twenty scenes, entitled "La Romance": "Charles is a poor, struggling musician. Unknown to him, his sweetheart Virginie shows Willmetz one of his compositions, which makes,,him famous almost overnight. Virginia's mother, who has other plans for her, succeeds n in making Charles believe that Vir;t ginie does not love him any more, is TRUTH DISCOVERED. I- "Downcast, Charles leaves for his n home town, where he tries to console _ himself with his childhood friend, Mathilde, but Mathilde has a boy friend called Emil. Charles's friend, d Leon, cames to tell him that the perr- son who had sold the composition to Willmetz was Virginie and that she still cared for him. Charles rushes 1 back to Virginie's house only to learn e that she and her mother had moved. Just then Virginie comes back to see 3 the house where many a happy hour had been spent with Charles. They " | meet and happily vow they will never -1 be separated again." - j A good many modern plays are bes ing written in Japan and produced by r the two syndicates. They are, for the I most part, strictly realistic and deal - with contemporary themes.' I had - glimpses of several. One. a comedy, r dealt with an abandoned wife who, : with the connivance of her kindly 1 landlord, pretended to die and then, . by appearing to her husband in a i series of ghostly visitations, frightened ■ him into returning to the ,domestic i fold. Another was the tragedy of a ■ peculating official who is driven to ■ suicide. But I gathered that most of the contemporary plays are not of a very high quality and that the conditions of production do not attract the leading writers to the theatre. Yuzo Yumamoto, a very popular writer and the author of several interesting plays with a strong feministic tinge, told me that he has taken to writing novels because the theatre is "too commercial." WESTERN PLAYS USED. Outside the syndicate, as I have mentioned, are several struggling groups of players who produce a great variety of American and European plays (in translation, of course). There appears to be no recognition of copyright in Japan and foreign plays are produced without even the formality of notifying the author. Many American playwrights would be astonished to discover—as I was—that their works are being translated, published, produced, and discussed in Japan. The familiarity of Japanese students of English with the contemporary American theatre, is astonishing and. after my first few days in Japan, I became quite accustomed to being questioned! about of Maxwell Anderson, Paul' Green, Lynn Riggs, and Erskine Caldwell, and the latest plans of Eva Le Gallienne and the Group Theatre. I cannot leave the subject of the Japanese theatre without mentioning a brave group of insurgents, the KiodoGekidan (co-operative players), who, in the face of official disapproval and police interference, are struggling to ■ maintain a "progressive" theatre. Their leader, U. Akita, is a courageous and dynamic figure. I had the dramatic experience of being whisked from a performance of a classical Kabuki dance to a dress rehearsal of Gorki's "Lower Depths." Five minutes before I had caught a glimpse of the feudal Japan of the Tokugawa Shogunate and here the stage swarmed with bearded Russian pariahs in boots and blouses! It was only when I was invited up to shake hands with them that they shrank to their diminutive size. Space does not permit a discussion of Japanese motion pictures. Many are being produced, some classical or historical, some modern. The 'Hollywood influence, of course, is very strong. American pictures are shown everywhere. (In one issue of a newspaper published in English, I found no less than four long Press agent reteases about Clark Gable!) Just what effect motion pictures are having upon ihe theatre I was unable to learn. At any rate, t6 an uninitiated foreigner !he Japanese theatre appears lively, interesting, and quite prosperous.