FACE PAGE The character of Kamakura Gongoro, a warrior of Old Japan, as presented in Shibaraku! (lit., Wait-a-Moment). A famous actor improvisation, or aragoto play, one of the hereditary eighteen pieces of the Ichikawa Danjuro family. (From a painting on silk by Torii Kiyotada, the present head of the Torii School) _Frontispiece, in colour_ Onoe Kikugoro as a brave samurai woman mounted on a white velvet stage steed 22 Nakamura Matagoro, the leading boy-actor of the Tokyo stage in the rôle of a girl-pilgrim, O-Tsuru 36 Announcing Ceremony. Kojo, or announcement ceremony, in which the central figure is Ichikawa Danjuro. The modest actor whose name is to be changed or rank raised bows low, hiding his face from view. (Colour print by Hasegawa Kampei, the fourteenth, and Torii Kiyosada, father of Kiyotada) 40 The last of the Ichikawa family, the granddaughter of Ichikawa Danjuro, the ninth 42 Theatre Treasures exhibited. At the Nakamura-za, founded by Saruwaka Kansaburo, the gifts given to him by the Shogun were considered as treasures of the theatre and exhibited on certain anniversaries with much respect, the actor holding the gold sai, or battle signal, and covering his mouth with a piece of paper lest his breath soil it. (Colour print by Hasegawa Kampei, the fourteenth, and Torii Kiyosada, father of Kiyotada) 69 Ichimura Uzaemon, the thirteenth, as Yasuna in a posture dance descriptive of a man who has become demented because of the loss of his wife 82 Onoe Matsusuke as Komori Yasu, or Bat Yasu, so called because of the birth-mark on his cheek which resembles a bat. A bold, bad man of Yedo 99 Matsumoto Koshiro, of the Imperial Theatre, in the character of Townsend Harris, the first American Minister to Japan. A photograph of the intrepid Kentucky Colonel is on the actor’s dressing-table 111 Nakamura Utayemon, leading actor of the Tokyo stage, in the rôle of Yayegaki-hime, the young princess in the play Nijushiko, or Twenty-four Filial Persons 132 Three onnagata of Asia: in the centre Mei Ran-fan of the Peking stage, to the left Nakamura Utayemon, the leading onnagata of Japan, and on the right Nakamura Fukusuke, the son of Utayemon and one of the most fascinating impersonators of women in Tokyo 136 Nakamura Jakuyemon of Osaka, an onnagata who imitates the acting of the marionettes 140