The "Geisha"

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 23, 18 December 1931, Page 3

The "Geisha"

A Japanese Musical Play to be Broadcast from 2YA under the direction of

EXT to the "Mikado," the "Geisha" is probably the best-known musical play with a Japanese setting. It contains many delightful airs and choruses, and is expressive of all that stands for youth and beauty in the land of the crocus. Its title is the class name for the educated woman of Japan who, although professionally, is the entertainer and the hostess. She dances, sings and talks; she is the life and soul of Japan, and must always be gay. always laughing and always young, ,even to the end of her life. The geisha begins her career at a very early age.. When only two or three years olg. she is taught to sing and dance and talk, and aljove all to be able to listen sympathetically, which is*the greatest art of all. ° The career of this tiny mite. is carved out thus early because her mother foresees that she has the qualities that will develop, and the little butterfly child, so gay and so brilliant,. will become a still more gorgeous butterfly woman. Nothing can be too brilliant for the geisha; she is the life and soul of Japan. the merry sparkling side

of Japanese life; she must be always gay, always laughing and always young, even to the end of her life. But for the girl who is to become the ordinary domesticated wife it is different. Starting life as a bright, light-hearted little child, she becomes sadder and sadder in colour and in spirits with every passing year. Directly: she becomes a wife her one ambition is to become old-in fact, it is almost a craze with her. he shows it in every possible way-in the way she ties her obi, the fashion in which she dresses her hair; everything that suggests the advance of the sere and yellow leaf she will eagerly adopt. When her husband gives a party he calls in the geisha; she herself, poor dear, sits upstairs on a mat and is not allowed to be seen. She is called the "honoured interior," and is far too precious and refined

to figure in public life. But, mind you, this little mar- — ried lady, the "honoured interior," does not ignore her personal appearance altogether; she too will never miss an opportunity to whip out the rouge-pot and mirror that always form part of every Japanese woman’s attire in order to decorate her face. And ° although to our eyes she appears a nonentity as com. pared with the geisha, her position is in reality a very happy one and greatly to be envied. What if the geisha entertain her husband’s guests? Hers is the greater privilege of attending upon him when he returns, tired out from the festivities; she is a rare jewel set in the background of her home, and the "honoured interior" is perfectly content. But the idiotic idea so general in the West, that the geisha is a silly, giggling little girl with a fan, must really be corrected, although it can be quite understood how this opinion has been formed. The geisha in reality is a little genius, perfectly brilliant as a talker, and mistress of the art of dancing. But she knows that the Westerner does not appreciate or understand her fine classical dancing and singing,

and she is so refined and so charming that she wul not allow you to ~ feel that you are ignorant and more or less vulgar, but will instantly begin to amuse you in some way that she thinks you will enjoy and understand. on S will perhaps unfold paper and draw © rapid character-sketches of birds and fish, or dance,a sort of spirited dance that she feels will entertain you. One never dines out or is entertained in Japan without the geisha . forming a prominent part of the entertainment; in fact, she herself decorates the room where you are dining, just as a flower or a picture would decorate our dining-rooms at home, only better. And there : is nothing more typical of the decorative sense (Concluded on page 4), ,

innate in the Japanese than the little garden of geisha girls, which almost invariably forms the background of every tea-house dinner. The dinner itself, with its pretty doll-tables, its curious assortment of dainty viands set in. red lacquer bowls, its quaint formalities, and the magnificent ceremonial costumes of its hosts, is an artistic scheme, elaborately thought out and prepared. But when, at the close, the troupe of geishas and maikos appears, forming (as it were) a pattern of gorgeous tropical flowers, the scene be--comes a bit of decoration as daring, original, and whimsically beautiful as any to be seen in the land of natural "placing" and artistic design and effect. The colours of kimonos, obis, fans, and head-ornaménts blend, contrast, and produce a carefully-arranged harmony, the whole converging to a centre of attraction, a grotesque, fascinating, exotic figure, the geisha of geishas-that vermilion-and-gold girl who especially seizes me. She is a bewildering symphony in vermilion, orange, and gold. Her kimono is vermilion embroidered in great dragons; hér obi is cloth of gold; her long hanging sleeves are lined with orange. Just ote little slim slip.of apple-green appears above the golden fold of the obi and accentuates the harmony; it is the cfape cord of the: knapsack which ‘pulges the loops at the back and gives the Japanese curve of grace, The little apple-green cord keeps the obi in its place, and is the discord which makes the melody. "My vermilion girl’s hair is brilliant black with blue lights, and shining where it is stiffened and gummed in Toops and bands till they seem to re--flect the gold lacquer and coral-tipped pins that bristle round her head. Yes, she is like some wonderful fantastical tropical blossom; that vermilion geishagirl, or like some hitherto unknown and gorgeous" dragon-fly.. And she is charming; so sweetly, simply, candidly alluring. Every movement and ‘gesture, each rippling: laugh, each fan-fiutter, each wave of. her rice-powdered arms from out of their. wing-like sleeves, is a joyous and naive. appeal for admiration and. Sympathy. How impossible to withhold either! The geisha-girl is an artist. My geisha-girl brings out her dainty lacquer-box, and under the gaze of' all sits down to decorate herself ‘with a frank joy in the pleasure she knows she is going to give. And she knows, too, what she is about. She. knows the value of a tone in a lip. Something suggests to ler that you, an artist, may have found the vermilion lip not quite in harmony with the plan, and. she changes it to bronze. Three times this evening does my geisha-girl change her. lip; she frankly takes it off with a little bit of rice-paper, which she rolls up and tucks into the folds of" her kimono, to be thrown away later, and the bronze lip is substituted. By and by it seems to occur to her that the bronze lip has become monotonous, and she will change it again to vermilion No doubt before evening is over there will be a series of little bits of rice paper folded away ready to be got rid of when the Dill is paid, the supper eaten, and the festival at an end. It is through the geisha-girls that there is still a living art in Japan at ithe present day in the designs of the

silk dresses that they wear... They are so modern, so up-to-date, and yet so characteristic of J apan. The women are very extravagant in their dress, and some of the leading geisha-girls will often go to the length of having stencils, with elaborate designs and an immense amount-of hand-work, specially cut for them, the stencils and designs being destroyed when sufficient mate-

riql for one dress has been supplied. For such a unique and costly gown the geisha will, of course, have to pay a fabulous sum, and a sum that would astound the average English woman of fashion.- But then when a geisha orders a costume she thinks it out carefully ; she does not go, as we do, toa dressmaker, but to an artist. It may be that she has a fancy for apple-blossom

at sunset, and this idea she talks out with the artist who is to draw the designs. A Japanese ‘woman chooses her costumes, not according to fashion, but to some sentiment or other-applé-blossom because it is spring-time, peach-blossom for a later season-and many beautiful ideas are thus expressed in the gowns of the women of Japan. But: although the geisha has plenty of latitude in which ‘to display her artistic feeling, there are some little ‘details of etiquette and fashion that she must adhere to, which show themselves in a few details of the Japanese women’s attire, as, for example, in the thongs of her little wooden shoes and the decoration of her jet-black hair. Not only is the kimono of the geisha, its colour and design, thought out by the artist, but al accessories of her toilette, such obi, the fan, and the ornaments forfher hair.. It is the artist’s ambition that she should be a picture, perfect in every detail, and the geisha is always a picture, beautiful beyond description. How different she is from the geisha of fiction, of operettas, and of storybooks, which is the only géisha that thé stay-at-home Englishman can kuow! That she is beautiful to look at all. the world agrees; but quite apart from her beauty, or the social position that she happens to occupy.in Japan, take her as a woman, a real woman, stripped of all outward appearances and of her own particular nationality -take her as a woman, and she will , be found as dainty in mind as in ap pearance, highly educated, and with ‘a great sense of honour, while her mor#l code would compare favourably with others of her sex all the world over.