THE JAPANESE THEATKE. 
357 
XVI l] 
representations last the whole day, they are followed by the 
spectators with the liveliest interest. There are playbills as at 
home, and numerous writings on subjects relating to the theatre. 
Among the Japanese books which I bought, there was for 
instance a thick one, with innumerable woodcuts, devoted to 
showing how the first Japanese artists conceived the princi¬ 
pal scenes in their roles, two volumes of playbills bound up 
together, &c. 
The Japanese pieces indeed strike a European as childish and 
monstrous, but one must admire many praiseworthy traits in 
the play itself, for instance the naturalness with which the 
players often declaim monologues lasting for a quarter or half 
an hour. The extravagances which here shock us are perhaps 
on the whole not more absurd than the scenes of the opera of 
to-day, or the buskins, masks, and peculiar dresses, which the 
Greeks considered indispensable in the exhibition of their great 
dramatic masterpieces. When the Japanese have been able to 
appropriate what is good in European culture, the dramatic art 
ought to have a grand future before it among them, if the 
development now going on is carried out cautiously so that the 
peculiarities of the people are not too much effaced. For, in 
many departments, and not least in that of art, there is much to 
be found here which when properly developed will form a new 
and important addition to the culture of the West, of which we 
are so proud. 
The large Japanese theatres, besides, often resemble the 
European ones in their interior arrangement. The partition 
between the stage and the space occupied by the spectators is 
the same as among us. Between the acts the former is con¬ 
cealed by a curtain. The stage is besides provided with painted 
scenes representing houses, woods, hills, &c., supported on 
wheels, so that a complete change of scene can be effected in 
a few moments. The music has the same place between the 
stage and the spectators as at home. The latter, as at home, are 
