"Three Tibetan Mystery Plays" is the title of a new book translated from the French by H. I. Woolf and Published by Messrs. ' Routledge. These are, it is believed, the first plays of the kind that have been fully rendered into English, "and it is remarkable that they should have jerome to us through the industry of a Frenchman. The drama is: the property of the. monks, lay: men occasionally helping in the female parts, and this gives it ite semi-religious and didactic charaeter. There is no set stage and ne scenery... The play is acted in the what the. translator enclosure, though it seems that the fence is composed of the tents or other n,_1 conaais of the narrator opening with a shore recital of the previous history, rather after' the fashion of the opening speech in many of the extant Greek tragedies, But his part does not, stop: there. At intervals between the dialogues hho comes on to carry the action for-or else this is dor tors themselves. The quently read their parts play lasts for two or three days.
Actors' Latitude, We are, however, not to suppose that the text before us represents the drama as played, The printed book is, in fact, little more than a skeleton; for long periods are occupied with the mute pantomime, while the actors, who specialize in particular parts, are by no means bound by the written word, but, on the contrary, use it with a great deal of freedom, putting in much of their own, so that euch actor gives his own' individual version. It may be remarked in parenthesis that, this freedom of treatment. seems to be peculiar to the Asiatic genius, for we find it also in the highly developed Indian art of music. Europe regards the text as sacred; it is a crime to take liberties with the text of Hamlet or with a Beethoven symphony. Asia prefers to intro duce the personality of the performers, regarding the performance of the literal text as tending to lifeless ness. This freedom of treatment naturally increases the length of the play, which is further assisted by being sung, often to the accompaniment of dances.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.