| Show Pitching Horseshoes Billy Samples Jap Wonders- Wonders And Passes His Judgment Bj- Bj Billy Rose Roso Its It's my bumptious relief that the state of af a nations nation's show business business bustness busi bust ness is a sure-shot sure index to the state of the nation nation na na- tion lion Itself and 1 that the fastest way to get a line lineon on what goes gocs on 4 in peoples people's heads is to have a look at the types of e n t c e they patronize And so during my seven days in Japan I gave its 5 stages tag e s n and n d Billy Rose screens a careful see peek-see paying particular attention to how the audiences reacted to what they saw and heard Tokyo's yos Broadway the is a up cluttered-up boulevard boule that combines the bouncier bounder aspects of I street and Coney Island and on its few short blocks sports four theaters a p passel sel of peep peepshows peepshows I shows 10 movie houses and more I cash customers than you can shake shakea I Ia a chopstick at The barns open at 10 am a.m. admission is the equivalent of two thin dimes in our money and the first one I went ent to the Daito Dalto offered a bumpy bill of fare that was a lot more borey than bawdy In a theater as cold as a a company of 10 through a bad imitation of while the audience mostly audience mostly peasants peasants peasants peas peas- ants street peddlers and casual workers workers sat sat there in up patched I overcoats and strips of white gauze across their mouths to protect I them from flu Iu germs What No Xo Applause As the acts finished and bowed I noticed there wasn't any applause applause applause ap ap- ap- ap and so I how corned the editor of The Nippon Times who was piloting me around Its HIts only in our better theaters that you'll hear hand-clapping hand he told me Burlesque audiences ape the aristocrats who are supposed supposed sup sup- posed to be hard to please From the Daito we went to the za Rock-za and took a hinge at another another another an an- other and up nip-up show called The Pink Luxury Liner which had one endearing endearing- moment moment- a soft-shoe soft dance in to the tune of Jeannie with the Light LightBrown LightBrown LightBrown Brown Hair Things began picking up at stop No 3 the International where a cleaner and classier girl show was wason wason wason on display Down front there was wasa a lump of several hundred bobbysoxers bobbysoxers bobby- bobby and when their favorite came out and kicked the fan around they squealed as loudly as our kids do for Frank Sinatra This favorite however was a girl dressed in top hat and tails since as the editor explained Mr bossman of the Shochiku syndicate syndicate syndicate syndi syndi- cate doesn't consider it proper for fora a 3 stage to contain both men and women Japans Japan's At the Nippon theater we caught the famous g girls the of Japan who have laye made their sponsor I one of the 10 yen happi est millionaires in the country Some years back this gent got het net up about the traditional Japanese court dance and built builta a school in which to teach it to young ladies A few years later crossing criss-crossing the country in traveling traveling traveling trav trav- eling units these girls caught on like cocoanut candy and with the profits launched the syndicate and bought theaters theaters theaters thea thea- and more theaters Our last stop on the Shinto circuit circuit circuit cir cir- cir cir- was a Kabuki theater run by bythe bythe bythe the mentioned above-mentioned Mr an elderly chap with elderly ideas who keeps producing Kabuki plays because he thinks the country ought to see them Kabuki is an ancient art form in which a raised eyebrow is enough to denote that the marines have landed and here again the cast is gal all-gal or all aU Most of these plays were written years ago and retain a certain time old elegance but after an hour of feeling the scams seams in the scat seat cover the thing I principally felt like cheering was the sensible system of selling separate tickets for each act act if if a customer only likes act 4 1 I he can let the other five go hang Confused Flickers The next neat day I sampled several Japanese movies and in the main found them to be confused flickers which try to keep one instep cast and the other west and often as not wind up on the small of the hack back In one respect however they were light years ahead of the legit legit girl girl met boy without girl playing boy although the last scene was usually a polite bow instead of the clinch that clinches The night before we left for Shanghai I tabled round-tabled with a hundred producers and directors and tried to answer their eager questions about entertainment in inthe inthe inthe the United States And during the evening I learned among other things that the two theatrical syndicates Shochiku and control 90 of Japans Japan's theaters and movie studios and since neither is interested in paying I royalties its it's practically impossible for a dramatist with a new play to find a producer to back it or a theater to house it Also theres there's no such animal as a drama critic in the whole of Japan seeing as ashow ashow how a producer would lose face and have to stick a knife in his I middle if someone panned his play State of the Nation All of which brings me back to tomy tomy tomy my getaway sentence that sentence that the state of a nations nation's show business is an index to the state of the nation As I see it the Japanese like their theater are straddling history with one foot in the Fifteenth Fifteenth Fifteenth I century and the other in I America and they're still trying to get by with ideologies and ideas which have cooled down a lot since they burned up the middle ages Besides which if theres there's anything to the theory that its it's healthy for far people to have a theater where they can take an honest look at themselves then the Japanese are plenty sick because the images that hat the theatrical syndicates are I showing them make male them look like Hollywood chorus girls or feudal I puppets And so if I may play for fora a moment its it's my hunch that I Japan isn't likely to straighten out and fly right until it develops a post-Hiroshima post culture of its own one one with a lot less lore and a lot lotmore lotmore lotmore more life Copyright 1949 1919 by Billy Rose I |
