The boy travellers in the Far East : adventures of two youths ... - Library

234
THE BOY TRAVELLERS.
the boxes, and I noticed that men and boys were going around selling
these things. I asked if we had come to the right place, as it occurred to
me that it was only at the Bowery and that kind of theatre in New York
that they sold peanuts and such things ; l.)ut the Doctor said it was all
right, and they did this in all the best tlieatres in Japan.
"Of course, if they come and stay all day, they must have something
to eat, and so I saw the reason of their having tea and other refreshments
peddled about the house. Then there were men wlio sold books which
gave an account of the play, and had portraits of some of the principal
players. I suppose these books were really the bills of the jDlay ; and if we
could have read them, we should have known something about the per-
formance more than we do now.
"While we were looking at the audience there came half a dozen raps
behind the curtain, as if two pieces of wood had been knocked together;
and a moment after the rapping had stopped, the curtain was drawn aside.
It was a common sort of curtaiii, and did not open in the middle like
some of ours, or roll up like others ; it was pulled aside as if it ran on a
wire, and when it was out of sight we saw the stage set to represent a
garden with lots of flower-pots and bushes. The stage was very small
compared with an American one, and not more than ten or twelve feet
deep ; but it was set quite well, though not so elaborately as m'c would
arrange it. The orchestra was in a couple of little boxes over the stage,
one on each side, and each box contained six persons, three singers and
three guitar-players. This is the regulation orchestra and chorus, so the}-
say, in all the Japanese tlieati'es, but it is sometimes differently made up.
If a theatre is small and poor, it may have only two performers in each
box, and sometimes one liox may be empty, but this is not often.
"The orchestra furnishes music by means of the guitar, or 'samisen.''
It is played something like our guitar, except that a piece of ivory is used
for striking the strings, and is always used in a concert that has any j^i'e-
IHE SAMISEN.
tence to being properly arranged.
There are two or three other instru-
ments, one of them a small drum,
which they play upon with the fingers ;
but it is not so common as the samisen,
and I don't think it is so well liked.
Then they have flutes, and some of
them are very sweet, and harmonize
well with the samisen ;
but the singers
do not like them for an accompaniment