Studio: international art (18.1900)

Japanese Religions Plays

wrapt in apple-green brocade, near the front centre
of the stage. This inclusion of a significant, silent
object among the dramatis persona; is curiously
effective. The sight of Yamashina tottering beneath
a physical weight would have made clumsy prose of
a beautiful poetic truth. His feelings are better
conveyed by the dirge-like song and lugubrious pos-
turing, which poverty of language compels one to
miscall a " dance." Full of dignity and fine gesture
is the ghost's rebuke. Slowly revolving on his
heels, tossing back his streaming silvery hair, now
dashing his staff upon the ground, now raising his
Aimcmo-sleeve slowly to hide his face—one felt that
this weird figure was expressing elemental passion
in language more elemental than speech.

Kyoto Court-life of the twelfth century, painted
for posterity in the famous, interminable pages of
Genji Monogatari, one of the oldest achievements
of the lady novelist, has found less tedious and
equally faithful presentment in such dramatic minia-
tures as Aoi-no-Uye, Prince Genji's long-suffering
wife. Jealousy is the key-note of this lyrical play
— that insatiable, self-torturing jealousy which is
the hardest of demons to expel. Again I notice a
piece of curious, silent symbolism. The poor

demoniac wife who gives her name to the play does
not appear either as person or figure ; in her stead
a long strip of folded brocade, suggesting a bed of
sickness, lies immediately behind the footlights.
Thus, though subconscious of her entity, the spec-
tator is compelled to focus all attention on the
apparition, which takes double form. First comes
the spirit of the Princess Rokujo, who takes ven-
geance on her false lover (Genji is the Don Juan of
Japan) by haunting the hapless Aoi in the shape of
a pale, wailing woman. KMiko, or Shinto priestess,
is summoned to exorcise the intruder. In vain she
rubs her green rosary, muttering fervid prayers • the
spirit wails more loudly, more intolerably, and only
yields at last to the fiercer spells and rougher
wrestling of soul with soul on the part of a moun-
tain priest, whose victory is but short-lived, for now
a terrible phantom, the Devil of Jealousy, wearing
the famous hanja mask, replaces Rokujo. Inch by
inch the priest falls back, as the grinning demon
with gilt horns and pointed ears, slowly unveiled
from shroudlike hood, glides forward to smite him
with menacing crutch. To and fro the battle rages
beside the prostrate Aoi-no-Uye; neither holy man
nor devil will give way ; the screaming and shrill