A THEATRE IN PEKIN.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11954, 11 June 1913, Page 2

A THEATRE IN PEKIN.

\] ■ AT A CHINESE PLAY. (By Mary Gaunt.) : : . It was without the great Tartar wall ■-'in the Chinese city; not the most initeportanti theatre —that was closed for •■ political reasons, they say, because the ■:■ -'Government does not wish the people : j-'to assemble together—but a minor -" theatre, a woman's theatre—that is, '-"'■ ens where only women were the actors, and Women Who hold a very low place '-'■■■ in. the social scale. The three rick- ' shaw<s put us down at an open doorway/decorated not with pictures of the ohaVmiiig damsels to be .seen within 'in their latest creations, but witn •bright red sheets of paper, on which ■ .the delights offered for .the evening • were inscribed in characters of gold. ? We went along a narrow passage •with a floor of hard-beaten earth, andbehind a wall we could liear.' the weird •' strains of the Chinese music. There .appeared to be only one door, and Shere sat a fat and smiling Chinese - who explained to my friends that,_ by ' the rules of the theatre, the men and women were divided, and that I must go to the womens' gallery: They de- .. Slurred. It would be very dull for me who could not -understand a word, ot • the language, to sit alone. Could not " an exception be made in ..my .favor/ The doorkeeper was courteous as at is mv experience so far, that all Chinese are, arid said that for ins part he had no objection; but the custodian of the theatre, put there by the Government to ensure Jaw and order, would object. —Observing the RulesHe, being sent for—be was one of the military police, in a modern black and gold uniform—sympathised!, but declared that the regulations must be carried out. It was put to ham.tnat these regulations were archaic, and that it was high time they were altered He smdlinglv agreed. They were archaic; very; but then, you see, they were the regulations. He was here to see that they were carried out, and he suggested as an alternative that we should take one of the boxes at the side. The'question of sitting in front was discussed', and we gave ourselves to the consideration of a box, for which six dollars was demanded. It was nut to the doorkeeper that the price" was verv high, and that as wo were sitting where we did not wish to' sit be ought to come down. He did. Shades of Keith and Prowse. Two dollars! . ■ ■■ Wo went up some steep and. l narrow steps of the most primitive order, were admitted to a large hall lighted by electric light—in Cambulac!—surrounded bv galleries with a dainty lattice work of polished wood., such as the Chinese employ for windows, a.nd we took our places in a box humbly furnished with bare benches and a plain wooden table. '. Just beneath us was the stage, and the ■ plav was 'in full swing—actors, property men, and orchestra all on at once. It was large and square, raised a little above the people in the body of the hall, and surrounded by a little low screen of the same dainty lattice work. At the back was the orchestra, composed only of men in ordiinarv coolie dress —(lark blue cotton—with long pigtails. There were castanets and 9. dhuirn, cymbals, violin, and various brazen instruments that looked like brass trays, and they all apparently played untiringly and against the actors. Yet taken altogether the result was. to say the least, distinctly Wagnerian. The entertainment consisted of a number of little plays lasting from fire minutes in length- to about a quarter of an hour. There were never more than, half a dozen people on the stage at once, and very often only two in the play altogether. The .story was more often convej'ed by dramatic gesture and vowed inflection than by language. Scenery was as it was in SHakespeare's day; it was xmderstood. ,When a galla.nt gentleman with tight sleeves, which proclaimed, him a: war-- ■ ■nor, and a long beard of bright red thread which" nrade~him a very fierce warrior indeed, snapped his fingers and .lifted up his legs you knew that lie was getting over a wall. A mountain, the shady -aide Of it, wag represented

by one panel of a screen which, leaned drunkenly against an ordinary _ chair, giving shelter toa very evil spirit with a dress that represented a leopard and the face of the grimmest and most terrifying of that species. —Crude Scenic Effects.—

This was a play that required much property to he displayed, for a, general with a face painted all black and white and a long black heard, with his army of five, took refuge behind a stout city wa-11 that was made of thin blue cotton stuff supported on four bamboo poles that marched on to the stage in the hands of a couple of stout coolies. A mountain spirit outside the wall did terrible things. Ever and again flashes of fire burst out after his speech, and I presume you were not supposed to see the coolie who manipulated that fire, though he stood on the stage as large as any one of the actors in the piece. .... It is hard work, too, talking against the shrieking, 'strident notes of the music, so naturally the actors constantly require a little liquid refreshments, and an attendant as prompt in offering tea in the tiny Tound basins the Chinese use; and nobody saw ashy-thing incongrruous in his standing there with the teapot handy, and in slack moments taking a sip himself. But with all thlia bare crudity the dresses of the principal characters, whether they are supposed to represent men or women, are most rich and beautiful. The General, with his hideously painted face and long black beard of thread, wears a golden embroidered robe that is priceless; a soldier, a sort of Dugald Dalgety, who pits himself against a modestly clad scholar, appears in a blue satin of t!he most delicate shade, beautifully embroidered with gorgeous lotus flowers and palms; and the principal ladies, who are really rather pretty in spite of their highly painted .faces and weird head-dresses, wear robes' that are priceless. Tiie'fun apparently consists of repartee, and every now and then the audience, Who are silent, and engrossed, instead of applauding spontaneously ejaculate, as if at a word of command, "Hao!" which I am told means "Good!" That audience was the best behaved and most attentive I have ever seen. It consisted mostly of men, as far as I could sec, of the middle class. They wre< packed close together, with here and there a little table or bench; and up and down went vendors of apples, oranges, pieces of sugar cane, cakes, and sweetmeats. —-Tea and l Towels. — There were also people who supplied hot, damp towels. A man stood here and there in the audience, and from the outer edge of tlhe theatre came hurtling to him over the heads of the people a bundle of these towels._ For a copper or so apiece he distributed them, the members of the audience taking a refreshing wipe of face and head and handing the towels back. When tile purveyor of the towels had fused •up his stock and got them all back again, he tied them up into a neat bundle and threw them back the way they had come, receiving a fresh stock in return. Never did a bundle of towels fail in reaching its appointed place, and scores of coppers must the vendors have pocketed'. They offered us towels up in the dignified seclusion of oirr box,"but we felt we could sustain life without washing our faces during the progress of the entertainunent. Tea. was brought too, in the handleless Chinese basins —tea without milk or sugar but good enough to stand alone, and I drank it with pleasure. Opposite us was the women's gallery, with Chinese laoies and Manchus with their high head-dresses. They, too, rethemselves with tea, and no man went near them.

And as the Httle plays go on even I, who understand mot a word, get a vague idea, of what is happening. The dresses belong to a previous age. The comic servant or countryman _ wears a short jumper and a. piece of white paper and powder 'about his nose. It certainly does make bimi look funny. The dignified scholar is arrayed all in black : U>" soldier the gayest of embroidered silks and satins; the landlady of the inn or boarding-house—a pleasant, smit-

iiig Ataman with roses in her hair and. tiny, maimed feet —has her forehead painted in black lace-work pattern; and when the male characters are very fierce indeed., they wear long and flowing beards —ideals which very seldom are attained to by the Chinese. About 11.30 the entertainments ends with a perfect crash of music, and the most orderly audience in the world goes out into the streets of the Chinese city into the clear night. Only in .very recent years, they tell me, have the streets of Peking- been lighted. Formerly the people went to bed at dusk, but they seem to lhave taken very kindly to the change, for the streets' a.re thronged. There are people on foot, people in rickshaws, people in the springless, Peking carts, and important personages with outriders and footmen in the glass broughams which the Chinaman, affects, .and there are the military police. The population is lawabiding, and would keep order on ita own account, but now at every corner, looking incongruous and out of place, is a military policeman in black and yellow with a rdfle .across Ms shoulder. '

In the Legation quarter they talk of wars and rumors of wars, and looking at these military police one understand that there is unrest in' the air. Surely there must be some purpose behind all this military display, which can scarcely be .needed to discipline" a people where the merest rickshaw coolie seems more courteous and more well disposed towards his fellows than the ordinary crowd pouring out of the stalls of a London theatre. Whatever the reason, there they are,- rifles on shoulder, at every few yards; and down on lis, 40ft high, frown the walls builded in past ages by the Ming dynasty. And so we go on through the throng-r ed sitreets, across the Beggars' Bridge of glorious marble, under the mighty archways of the city gates into the Legation quarter, guarded like a fortress, and so to our sleeping hotel and to bed.