Yone Noguchi, "Sada Yacco," New York Dramatic Mirror, 17 Feb. 1906, p. 11

 

 

 

Sada Yacco

Sada Yacco (she may not be the Japanese Terry, if she be the Japanese Duse) and I sat comfortably on the white sands of the seashore off Chigasaki, where she has her country villa.  Yes, we sat like two children estrayed from the world.  Before us the eternal Fuji mountain, that white dome of beauty and art, stood like a ghost.  Madam Yacco must have been praying before the holy mountain to have her art ennobled and her heart purified.  "Art is nothing but heart.  Heart, only heart," she declared a while ago.  Now we were quiet and dreamy, hearing the white song of the sea-waves which kissed our feet.  She appeared perfectly graceful and bewitching.  (By the way, she is no more a young girl, being above thirty-five).  The golden sun--did you ever see how brightly the Japanese spring sun shines?--fell luxuriously over her flowing hair.  She left off dressing her hair in the stiff Japanese mode ever since she returned from her foreign trip.  She is adopting every American and European custom, not only in her hair dressing.  I fancied that even her eyes sparkled like an American actress.  To hear her voice was a great treat.
    "I owe everything to America.  My American trip was my education.  America, America, what a great sound America has!  Why, I should like to go there again.  This is a secret.  How funny woman has so many secrets!  My husband (Oto Kawakami) is about signing a contract with a certain manager to appear first in Argentine, and our plan is to turn to America then.  When?  Next year, Mr. Noguchi.
    "America taught me that naturalness was the foremost art.  The make-up of the face for instance.  We used to make our faces like a woman's in a Japanese picture--drawing little slender eyebrows, reddening our lips, and powdering our faces thickly.  American critics said they were not the faces of living women, but of dead persons.  So they are.  But Japanese think they are beauty.  There's nothing more unnatural than the Japanese make-up in face.  Yes, I learned so many things in America.  In Japan a laughing face is forbidden while dancing.  But in America we must appear smiling and happy in dancing.  Japanese art is to make one as a doll.  And on the American stage we have to show ourselves as living women.
    "It was a perfect wonder to see the variety of American face powders.  There are more than ten kinds to be sure.  Science is applied even to the powder.  And we must make up according to science.  Once I ordered powder in New York and I was sent a yellow powder.  'No thank you, my face is yellow enough,' I said, and returned it.  The storekeeper insisted on my using it, and I tried it.  To my surprise that yellow powder appeared creamy white on my yellow face.  When I renewed my order the storekeeper must have said 'I told you so.'  How petty to think only the white powder the thing to beautify the face!  And after joining with Miss Loie Fuller (of butterfly dance fame) in Paris, I learned a great deal from her.  She was wonderfully young for her age.  She must be more than fifty.  Her house was such a wonder, with four or five carriages and fifty horses.  We played at the Théatre Loie Fuller on the Paris Exposition grounds.  She danced, too.  She was a great manager herself.  Our company was paid three thousand dollars a week, but afterward she begged us to cut down the salary.
    "Our experience in America was the bitterest one, however.  We were ignorant about managing, and did not know what sort of play would fit the American taste.  We made a flat failure in San Francisco.  We landed on the Pacific Coast without any funds.  You can imagine how hungry, how discouraged we were.  We engaged to play at the California Theatre of 'Frisco for one week and we couldn't continue more than three nights for various reasons.  We were so foolish as to appear to an American audience with one of our classical dramas like Kasunohe.  Nobody could understand, since they had no knowledge of our Japanese history.  Immediately we found out that we must play a love play.  Love is universal.  Then we played Geisha and Knight, which was a universal success through America and Europe.  It was a queer mixture of Japanese plays, but it appealed to the American mind with love, and delighted with our gorgeous costumes.  Americans love anything showy and happy; they will not stand things uselessly tragic.  We used to omit the cutting-head-off scene from Kesa.  Once we showed the bloody part of it, and some lady in the audience thrilled from fear.  But in France things are different.  The more bloody the more glad the audience will be.  My death scene was the chiefest success in Paris.  It seems to me that the French are bloody people in heart.  They are glad to cry rather than to laugh.  They are, perhaps, glad to kill or to be killed rather than to cry.  The young lady who appeared as if she wouldn't tease even a butterfly would look at our 'haraki scene' with the coolest face possible, and she would be glad at seeing it.  Under their grace and beauty all the French people are hungry for blood and tears, I dare say.  However, I am most grateful to France, since she brought us to the front of the world of art and theatre.  I owe her the recommendation for my success of to-day.
    "The American theatre was a wonder for us.  Even electricity was not used in the Japanese theatre some fifteen years years ago.  Drops and scenery were a revelation.  We were studying in America rather than acting to Americans.  We landed in San Francisco hopelessly ignorant, and returned fairly acquainted with the dramatic art and stagecraft.  As I said, we owe everything to America.
    "Once in New York we attended a certain dramatic school, whose president, I believe, was a certain Mr. Bellnap.  We saw a pantomime there which struck us forcibly.  After we returned home we added to it some Japanese original art of 'acting without words,' and made out of it some new thing.  Mr. Bellnap gave us The Traitor Samisen--a one-act play with a poor artist and heartless wife--and we expect to put it on the stage.
    "We found a manager first in Chicago by the name of Mr. Comstock. Till then we had no manager.  What a terrible experience we had in 'Frisco and other Coast cities!  After Chicago we had a fairly good reception in Boston.  We played before the late President McKinley at the Japanese legation of Washington.  We had the most cordial welcome.  Even the critics made splendid comments.  Some paper compared my husband with great Booth in Soga, saying that his tragic power and minute acting had no rival.  It was laughingly overpraised, of course.  Our sail in New York was easy after having gained distinction at Washington.  I, especially , was treated handsomely.  Once I was invited by the Actress' Club, and became a special member, and was given a medal of 'good luck.'  Also, we were invited to the Players' Club, which is the monument of the dead tragedian.
    "And in London!  Everything went as we expected.  Even a play like Takanori, which was little appreciated in America, was received heartily.  English people understand what is loyalty and Americans don't.  It may be the difference between a republic and an imperial kingdom.  The highest honor we received in London was nothing but that we were admitted before the Prince of Wales of those days, the King Edward of to-day, and played before him.  A stage in the fashion of the Japanese stage was made in Buckingham Palace grounds, and the play was such a success.  The prince was immensely pleased, especially with my Dojoji, and he gave me a kind word and asked me many questions.  'How lovely is your hair,' he said playfully.  Afterward we were given two thousand dollars in English gold.  While we were playing at the Coronet we signed a contract with Miss Loie Fuller.  We played also at the Japanese legation of Paris, and before the President of France.  I had such a lovely talk with Mrs. President, and we walked arm in arm in the garden.  (It was a garden party where we were invited and played).  I made acquaintances with Miss Bernhardt and other French actresses, who gave me a thousand valuable suggestions.  My life in Paris was the most delightful one.  I can hardly forget it.
    "After all, the American theatre is the most competent, and the American actresses are the best.  And the American critics are generous, not falling into flattery and foolish praise.  The falling into flattery and foolish praise.  The American criticism was an education for us.  We learned much from it.  And it gave us hints and points which were new and adoptable.
    "Am I not tired playing for six long hours instead of three, as in America, you say?  I tell you, Mr. Noguchi, that three hours of America are harder than six hours in Japan.  Why?  In America we are not acting before an audience like the Japanese, who smoke, talk, eat, occasionally sleep, and often bring their babies with them.  And the Japanese audience hardly see the play.  But in America the audience are serious and study and criticise.  To play before them is not easy work at all.  As  long as our Japanese way of seeing the play does not change we see little hope of improving the Japanese theatre.  Japanese come to spend their time rather than to see the play.  Alas, they do not understand that the theatre is the holy dome of art and humanity.  There will be some time yet for the Japanese theatre to become a holy place of poetry and human beauty.  Let me say again, the play is nothing but heart!  Yes, heart, heart!"
    "I thank you, Madam Yacco, for giving me such a delightful interview."
    "Not at all, Mr. Noguchi.  Come often, will you?"
Yone Noguchi