CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATRICALS.
If the Chinese must go they will have to close up the large theatres
in San Francisco owned and controlled by Celestial managers. In these
temples of the almond-eyed Thespis extraordinary plays are enacted
running through months and even years, in a to-be-continued style, for,
the Chinese dramatist, who never writes anything but tragedy of the
wildest and most harrowing kind, always begins with the birth of his
hero or heroine and does not let the merest incident pass until his
or her friends are ready to sit down to a feast of roast pig and rice
by the side of the principal character's grave. The dramas are mainly
historical, and many a Chinaman who starts in to see a first-class
play of the average length is on his way back to China in a coffin
or box with his cue neatly folded around him for a burial robe, long
before the last act of the drama is reached. So, too, the star actors
frequently die before they have time to finish the play. I don't know
that any American has ever had the patience to wait for the denouement
of a Chinese drama, but to the saffron-skinned, horse-hair-surmounted
and slanting-eyed citizen of San Francisco, his theatre is a place next
in importance to the Joss House or temple, and when he once buys his
season ticket for a show, he sticks to it with a pertinacity that would
put an ordinary glue or cement advertisement to the blush. It is the
same, too, when they patronize a theatre in which the surroundings and
language are English; once in their seats, they stay--forgetting even
to go out between the acts for an opera-glass or a bottle of pop.
But to return to the Chinese theatre. Its interior differs very little
from the interior of the places of amusement frequented by his American
brother. The general contour and arrangement of the auditorium is
pretty much the same. The men sit together on benches partitioned off
into single seats in the lower portion of the house, or pit, with their
little round hats on, and their pipes or cigars in their mouths; the
ladies, who are not allowed into the male portion of the auditorium,
have galleries for themselves whence they look down upon the actions
of their male friends below. Everywhere except on the stage quiet and
the utmost serenity prevail, no person in the audience moving a hand,
raising a foot, or opening a lip, even when the villain is cut into
ribbons by the Sunday-school hero; and at no stage of the performance
does the slightest manifestation of delight or disapprobation come from
the patient and enduring on-looker. In this respect John Chinamen has
neglected to take a lesson from his American cousin, or to acquire the
character of the howling short-haired gentlemen who apotheosize Dennis
Kearney and think there is no better worshipping place in the world
than "the sand lots."
The largest Chinese theatre in San Francisco is on Washington Street
and was opened in 1879. Its auditorium is almost a copy of the best
theatres of the large cities of the country. Its audience is seated
and separated in the manner I have described, and their behavior is,
in accordance with the custom of their country, quiet and respectful.
The stage of the theatre, though, is a curiosity. There is no curtain,
and but one scene that never changes. On the side of the stage--or
proscenium--long slips of colored paper with Chinese characters on
them are hung--the adages and axioms of what is familiarly known as
tea-chest literature--and numerous multi-colored lanterns shed their
radiance around the place. At the back of the stage sit several
musicians with tom-toms, cymbals, fiddles, and divers other instruments
all of wonderful construction and with frightful capacity for setting
anybody but a Chinaman crazy. These musicians seem to be as important
elements in the action and meaning of the play as the actors themselves
are. As soon as the performance begins they immediately tune up, and
from that on until the show is over they never give the audience or
the music a single rest. The play usually begins at five o'clock in
the afternoon and continues until two the following morning, so it
will be readily understood that the Chinese musician has a pretty wide
scope for his genius, while the Chinese audience must be more than
mortal to stand both the music and the actors for some hours at a
stretch. The actors make themselves as hideous as possible, employing
wigs and long beards with plenty of paint to disguise themselves.
They stalk and stamp around in a manner highly suggestive of the
English-speaking "scene-eater," and there is a great deal of stabbing
and killing--thunder and blood, so to speak--which is wasted, as the
audience does not seem to rise to the enthusiasm of the occasion and
there are no "gallery gods" to help bring the house down. While the
actors are shouting loudest, the musicians, all of whom seem to be
playing different tunes, are working hardest and the din and discord
of a supremely grand moment of Chinese tragedy are something horrible
to hear and simply torturesome to endure. Boys or young men play
the female parts as was the custom on the English stage in the time
of Elizabeth. There is no levity in the performance, no prancing or
dancing, nothing but the utmost severity and solemnity, which leaves
me in doubt whether the Chinese go to the theatre to be amused or are
compelled by some law of their country or religion to do so.
The property-room of a Chinese theatre is a very queer concern, filled
up with lanterns, old clothes, spears, etc., but the most extraordinary
feature of the place is the quantity of eatables that find their
way into the room and down the throats of the performers. That most
delicious morsel, roast pig, of whose discovery by the Celestials
Charles Lamb has written so charmingly, occupies a prominent place on
the board, and is frequently attacked by the actors, who appear to
come off the stage as hungry as six-day go-as-you-please pedestrians
are when they leave the track. When the Chinese actor is not acting or
putting on his costume you may depend upon it that he is eating. This
histrionic peculiarity is strongly marked among the descendants of
Ho-Fi, who if they are not good tragedians have first-class appetites
and stomachs whose capacity is not measured by three meagre meals a day.
A correspondent writing from Yokohama gives an idea of the amusements
served up in the Japanese capital by its enterprising theatrical
managers. The Japanese, says this writer, are a theatre-going
people, and their taste is catered unto continually. Whether the
managers accumulate riches I know not, but theatrical amusements are
provided for the wants and means of all classes. At the first-class
establishment is a revolving stage, upon which is placed the scenery
and properties devoted to the play on the boards. The orchestra
occupy the left-hand side of the stage, or rather they are placed
in an elevated pen at the left of the stage floor. The revolving
part of the business is about fifteen feet from the foot-lights, the
intervening space being permanent. The wings are not elaborate, and
not much machinery is employed to work up effects. The inevitable trap
is utilized on this stage, it being the only place that boasts of the
improvement. The actors at this theatre are of the first rank, and
their dresses are gorgeous in the extreme. "Regardless of expense" must
be their motto; and here are produced all the famous plays known to the
natives, they being all of national significance.
The Japanese are patriotic in their instincts, and do not run after
strange representations with which to amuse themselves. Everything
on the board is intensely Japanese--descriptive of their fables and
romances, as well as reproducing actual episodes in the history of the
empire. To the stranger who is alien to the language their plays are
first-class pantomimes only, though one can but accord the actors rare
dramatic ability. I must say, however, that the style affected in their
stage step is something too awfully too too for anything. The poetry of
motion is a different affair here from what is considered the correct
thing elsewhere. Keene or Billy Emerson could, either of them, get a
new kink in a stage walk if they could study Japanese methods a while.
It costs thirty cents to enter the temples of dramatic art--that is, to
be in the place for the upper tendom, the gallery--or dress circle, it
may be called--which runs on both sides of the house, as well as on the
end fronting the stage. This gallery is about five feet wide, and is
entered from the passage-way running along it through openings in the
partition without doors. It is divided into spaces of five feet or
more by placing a round piece of timber of say two inches in diameter
from the gallery front and the back of it. The front is elevated above
the floor about fifteen inches only, as the occupants are expected to
sit upon their haunches on the matted floor. Between acts tea is served
to any who will buy, and smoking is allowed all over the house during
the play. The body of the theatre is supplied with benches without
backs for the accommodation of the audience.
[Illustration: CHINESE THEATRE.]
There is no sharp practice in the way of reserved seats in Japanese
theatres. Neither is there necessity to go outside for a clove or
browned coffee. When once seated you are at your ease, not having to
draw yourself up for any other fellow. The second-grade places are
of a cheaper order, where one can sit on the floor, there being no
seats, or stand upon the ground, there being no floor, the earth doing
duty in that regard. One cent and a half and two cents and a half
give the grades of the establishments. They are all, best as well as
inferior, lighted with the domestic-made candle, and when the original
dips of our grandmothers are remembered, the kind of a candle used
is described. The candles smoke as well as the audience. There is a
large stock of amusement to be had in a one and a half cent concern,
that is, if you are not particular about the æsthetic nature of the
surroundings, and do not carry with you a cultivated musical ear. These
places do not carry on their pay-roll any large number of star actors,
or a numerous stock company, and they do not devote much time to the
rehearsal of parts, as it is the duty of the prompter to flit from one
actor to another with the lines of the dialogue in one hand, and in the
other a stiff paper lantern. Bending low, he reads in a tone readily
caught by the actor the lines, which are duly repeated, while the
prompter "is doing his duty" by the next one. It is one of the most
interesting features of a play, this constant flitting of the prompter.
If any fellow about the establishment earns his pay, the prompter is
the man.
[Illustration: CHINESE PROPERTY-ROOM.]
There are very many side-shows to attract the pleasure-seeker, all of
them being within the compass of the humblest, the charge being from
one-half cent to one and one-half cents. In these places are witnessed
juggling tricks of real merit, and top-spinning that is a bewilderment
to the looker-on. Tops of all sizes are spun with the aid of a string,
and made to revolve by the action of the hands only. An expert will
throw his top from him, and by the action of the string as it unwinds
draw it back so that it is caught in his hand--of course, without it
having touched the ground. An unopened fan is then taken in the other
hand, and the top is placed upon one of its sides and spun along it.
Then the fan is opened, and the top continues to spin along its edge
to its farther side, and along it until the hand is reached, when up
it runs on the arm to the shoulder, and across the back and down the
other arm, on to the fan again. Then it will be tossed into the air
and caught upon one of the corners of the opened fan, from which it
is tossed again and again into the air and caught as it descends. It
is wonderful the way they can manipulate a top. I have seen them take
a large-sized one, having a spindle by which it was made to rotate,
and by simply placing the spindle between the palms of the hands, and
drawing one hand back while advancing the other a number of times it
attained sufficient velocity, when it was taken from the table on which
it was spinning and a turn taken around the spindle with a string that
was pendant from a paper lantern hanging high up against the ceiling
of the building. Up went the top into the lantern, which opened into
the shape of an umbrella, and a wealth of festoons of bright-colored
tissue paper descended from it all about the stage. Those who witnessed
Little All Right and the troupe of Japanese acrobats that exhibited
their tricks years ago in the United States will remember the many
surprising feats done by them. What they paid $1 for seeing can be
witnessed in Yokohama in the open air for just what one is pleased to
contribute, or under cover for from one to three cents.
[Illustration: MINNIE MADDERN.]
There are no manifestations of applause, no cat-calls or signs of
impatience. In the places visited by even the poorest, where the
accommodations are of the rudest, perfect order is observed, and every
one seems to be possessed of a patient quietness that is amazing. They
exhibit a deference for the comfort of their fellows that is worthy of
imitation. One great reason, perhaps, that the people are so gentle
and accommodating, one to the other, may be found in their complete
sobriety. No exhibition of drunken rowdyism is to be seen, and yet the
entire people, women as well as men, drink of the national beverage,
"sake," a liquor distilled from rice. As there is no "tarantula juice"
in its composition, its inebriating quality is rather mild. Its effect
upon the brain is not lasting, neither is it injurious.