THE CHINESE THEATRE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 73, 22 March 1912, Page 3

THE CHINESE THEATRE.

A Hongkong correspondent of the “Westminster Gazette” lias written his impressions of a visit to a Chinese theatre at a time when'‘it was doubtful whet-hei'i the internephie strife was a rebellion..or a revolution. The playhouse was., .a dingy barn, crammed full of Chinese,' mostly of the coolie class. The men, were all on one side and the women on the other, and attendants went round selling saucers of fruit, melon seeds, sweetmeats, and cups of green tea. “As you push your way,” he says, “through the crowd to your reserved pew, because that is exactly what it is like, you hear the beating of tom-toms and the strident squeak of fiddles completely out of tune mingled with a sound as though all the fire-irons in Christendom were being thrown downstairs. This is the orchestra, and it plays throughout the performance; there is no escape from it even for a moment, and the crash of cymbals and banging of gongs never give you one moment’s respite.” Through the dim cloudy atmosphere he caught sight of what was doing on the stage. There was no scenery, no curtain, no wings, no footlights. The actors make their entrance through doors to the right and the left of the back of the stage. The drama has its dialogue in Mandarin dialect, as unintelligible to the audience as English. That it may be intelligible at all, each little while the comedian (who is marked by his white-painted nose) wheezes in impure Cantonese. No women appear, for while it is not forbidden, the laws of form decree that no woman shall be on the stage. All the women’s parts are taken by men, and the impersonation is absolutely perfect as to deportment, gesture, dress, and figure, and, above all, voice. The shrill falsetto twittering is perfectly produced. Imagination plays a wonderful part throughout. For instance, someone is .supposed to arrive on horseback. In ho walks on his own logs, protends to pull at the horse’s mouth, dismounts, and a groom comes running in. snatches at an imaginary bridle, and loads the non-existent horse away. And the excellence of the art is a matter for wonder, as in China the actor’s is the lowest caste of all. If a boy’s father is an actor, he must follow in his parent’s footsteps; he is bought by a manager as though ho were a brute beast. The manager gives him “chow,” opium, and cigarettes. He never “rests,” for when ho is not playing ho is employed in learning new parts, with their thousands of lines of blank vorse. The dressing is gorgeous, but to the European eye much of the drama is ludicrous. But then what would an educated Chinese think of our musical comedy ?