Glowing memories of the varied scenes in shibai do not soon fade away; the friendliness of the tea-house mistresses who have remained for long years at their posts; the thrilling experience of meeting an actor off the stage in an upper room of a tea-house looking down on the blaze of oblong lanterns that form the street illuminations; the unfailing attentiveness of the dekata, those servitors of shibai who seem to have wandered into the present from old Yedo; an actor on the hanamichi surrounded by the people, all eyes intent on his movements, or the unrestrained applause when an actor reaches a high level of acting. Many shibai landmarks are passing, giving place to more advanced ideas. In the leading theatre, chairs have now replaced the cushions laid on the matting as in a Japanese dwelling; steam heat ensures a well-warmed interior in winter; maids in black frocks and white bib and tucker are replacing the dignified, faithful dekata; the time given to the performances is steadily being reduced. Shibai must progress. But in their efforts to be up to date the iconoclasts would throw overboard much of the honest and simple regime that has for so long distinguished Kabuki. CHAPTER III CONVENTIONS OF KABUKI While the development of the popular theatre of Japan has been co-existent with that of England and Europe, and fundamentally it is the same, there are striking differences in the conventions. These are the result of the isolation of Kabuki, due to the seclusion policy of the shogunate which endured for two centuries and a half. Kabuki conventions appear at first sight so different from our own that it takes time to understand and appreciate them. Familiarity, however, reveals the taste and sincerity of the Kabuki collaborators, who, far from the influence of the theatres of other lands, worked out their own salvation. One of the most interesting conventions to the Occidental is the hanamichi, or flower-way. It is an extension of the stage proper to form a path through the audience. There are always two hanamichi in a theatre, one on either side of the stage, that on the left being the wider and more important, that on the right smaller and less used. Some of the most vital principles of Kabuki are at work when the hanamichi is employed. The modern playwrights who ignore it, not only rob the actors of something strongly theatrical, but at the same time take away from the audience the keen delight that comes from close contact with the creations of the stage. Pageantry and ceremonial claim the hanamichi as their own. Sweeping over it come processions of gay courtesans; priests in stiff brocades chant as they march solemnly to some ornate stage-temple; daimyo trains wind their way with all the pomp of feudal days; the whole theatre becomes a stage and every person in the audience feels his connection with the play and players.