Princess Kiku: A Japanese Romance A Play for Girls

The Japanese are notably and effusively polite in their deportment. Japanese girls are especially kind-hearted and obliging. Their religion denies them immortality, and they believe that their paramount duty in life is to please.

Their education imbues them with an intense love of flowers, bright colors and all that is beautiful; it inculcates the extreme of social etiquette in every-day deportment; it adds words of compliment in the commonest phrases of conversation, and, moreover, teaches them to rely on signs, omens and tutelary gods, both good and evil.

In this “Romance” the quaint and sprightly style of Japanese expressions is carried out as faithfully as possible, and the performers must study carefully the endless obeisances and quaint dialogue which are indispensable to make it effective.

The scenery, where available, may be elaborate, as in Japanese operas, but excellent effect may be obtained with a few Japanese plain and ornamental screens, Japanese umbrellas, fans and plenty of chrysanthemums, real or artificial, and of various colors.