Shakespeare’s histories before eminent actor-managers set to “improve” upon his work, mutilating him on his country’s stage in the evolution of a (fortunately more textual) interpretation, pointedly designated as Shakespearian post-impressionism. A _wayang poorwa_ performance knows nothing of the showy accessories devised by and for our histrions to hide poverty of mentality and poorness of acting, futile attempts to make up in settings, properties, costumes and trappings, tailoring, millinery and disproportionate finery what they lack in essentials. The performer sits under his lamp behind a white, generally red-bordered piece of cloth stretched over a wooden frame on which he projects the figures. He speaks for them and intersperses explanations and descriptions, directing the musicians with his gavel of wood or horn, striking disks of copper or brass to intimate alarums, excursions, etc. Formerly all the spectators were seated before the screen, as they still are in West Java, Bali and Lombok, but gradually the men, separating from the women and children, moved behind, so that in Central and East Java they see both the puppets and their shadows. The _wayang gedog_, much less popular than the _wayang poorwa_, evolved from it in the days of Mojopahit as Dr. L. Serrurier informs us; while the latter draws its repertory principally from Indian epics, the former with Raden Panji, Prince of Jenggala, for leading hero, is more exclusively Javanese and prefers the low metallic music of the _gamelan pelog_[102] to that of the _gamelan salendro_[102] with its high notes as of ringing glass. In the _wayang kelitik_ or _karucil_, of later invention and never of a religious character, the puppets themselves are shown: since _wayang_ means “shadow”, the use of that word is here, for that reason, less correct, and the same applies to the _wayang golek_ in which the marionettes lose their spare dimensions and become stout and podgy; to the _wayang topeng_[103] and _wong_[104] in which living actors perform, an innovation not countenanced by the orthodox, who are afraid that such deviations from the _hadat_ may result in dread calamities; and to the _wayang bèbèr_ which consists in displaying the scenes otherwise enacted, in the form of pictures. Every one finds in the _wayang_, of whatever description, an echo of his innermost self: the high-born, smarting under a foreign yoke, in the _penantang_ (challenge and defiance), the lowly in the _banolan_ (farce), the fair ones of all classes in the _prenesan_ (sentimental, gushing, spoony speech). It is a treat to look at the natives, squatted motionless for hours and hours together, their eyes riveted on the screen, listening to the voice of the invisible performer, marvelling at the adventures of the men and women who peopled the _negri jawa_ before them and faded into nothingness, even the mightiest among them, whose mausolea at Prambanan, Toompang, Panataran, bear witness to the truth of those