The Land od the Rising Yen

plays in the
morning; then we had an hour’s break for lunch. In the afternoon it began all
over again with a play called Onna Shijin. The hero of this was
Gyo-Genki, a supremely beautiful woman and a great poetess, the daughter of
Gyo-Bo, a ‘madman in a house of pleasure’. Quite a promising start. The play
itself lived up to our expectations.
    Then came my own favourite, The
Earth Spider. When the curtain rises we see the orchestra squatting at the
back of the stage (as in all Kabuki plays), amid very impressive, beautiful
scenery. We see a nobleman by the name of Minamoto Yorimutsu. He has fallen
ill, and cannot understand what is wrong with him. People, by the way, do not
speak in Kabuki plays: they chant in an artificial, monotonous, high-pitched
voice; they also moan, mutter, groan, squeal, wail, whimper, whine, snivel and
roar. This is a very ancient tradition and if you start watching Kabuki plays
at the age of two, you may get used to it. If you start later, you wonder.
    Yorimutsu is visited by Kocho, a
ravishingly beautiful lady-in-waiting, who dances for the sick man. The dance
does not cure him. Kocho is followed by another visitor in the guise of a
travelling priest. But he is not a travelling priest at all, far from it: he is
the Earth Spider. From his mask you can see immediately that he is not an
attractive character. He walks in extremely slowly, roughly a quarter of a mile
per hour. A number of other people — Yorimutsu’s servants — sit, kneel, and
squat about. Some people among the audience shriek with excitement. At last the
visitor throws a spider at Yorimutsu who is, however, on the alert; he jumps
up, snatches his sword and slashes at the sham priest. The latter vanishes into
thin air. ‘Vanishing into thin air’, is represented by his strolling away a
little more slowly than he came.
    All the members of the Yorimutsu
household now gather together and decide that quick action must be taken. The
Earth Spider must be sought out in his cave and destroyed. For about half an
hour they chant and whine, ‘Let’s follow himl Let’s run after him, we mustn’t
give him a chance to run away I ’ There is tremendous excitement, expressed by
the fact that they all sit about quietly, almost motionless. They repeat:
‘Let’s hurry, let us gallop! We have not a moment to lose!’ Whereupon they all
remain seated.
    The afternoon wears on. Suddenly
Yorimutsu shouts: ‘Aa...!’ (Emphasis on the second ‘a’.) He stamps his foot
twice. The chorus starts chanting again.
    ‘Go, go and avenge yourself on the
Earth Spider.’ Yorimutsu gives his answers in whispers: he informs his
household that he is in a frantic rage and that they must hurry desperately,
otherwise the monster might get away. One cannot be quick enough in such
matters. Then he declares, ‘Aa!’ again and stamps his feet three times.
    When I wake up three quarters of an
hour later, the chase is at its height. Three men are moving about the stage to
declare about a dozen times that everything depends on speed, otherwise the
monster might have a chance to escape. Then the pace of the chase quickens; the
three men — still motionless — become more emphatic on this point and sit down
to debate it: ‘Let us not spare ourselves! Who thinks of himself in such an
hour as this? We have a sacred duty to perform.’
    A number of pursuers now arrive,
accompanied by a sort of gentle lullaby. They fully agree with the views of the
Three. ‘We cannot have a moment’s rest until that curse, the Earth Spider is
slain.’ They sit down. A boy comes in moaning: ‘Let us pursue him!’ He performs
a dance with two flags. After the dance the boy says: ‘Let us not waste a
single moment,’ and dances another dance with seven fairies. The three original
pursuers, still remarkably fresh although they have been squatting on the floor
for so long, shout as the boy dances: ‘Hurry, hurry! Not a moment is left!’ The
air is now so charged with urgency and tension that everyone sits down: the
boy, the seven fairies and all.
    Thirteen other people rush in on
their knees. They lie down and kick their legs up into the air. They get up
after a considerable time and dance first a doll-dance, then a puppet-dance and
finally a Japanese polka. When this is over two men drag in a pedestal and
leave it on the right side of the stage.
    Someone starts knocking. The knocking
goes on for twenty-three minutes. Another person chants: