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36.

IN A CHINESE THEATRE.

If you want to be amused, and have a large stock of patience and nothing better to do, go to see a play acted in a Chinese theatre, such as may now be found in almost every large town on the Pacific Coast of America. You will find it most entertaining, and are moreover, certain to gain, if nothing else, an enlarged view of the possibilities of the drama. You must, however, be willing to play your part as one of the audience thoroughly, if you wish to learn anything. It would be worse than useless to go merely to gaze blankly and blandly for a few moments, like a supernumerary, and then to disappear for ever. A short stay could only result in wrong impressions: you would come away amused and vain : you would "feel good" about it: your race-pride would be flattered, and you would say to yourself, "What queer nonsense! What droll folk to enjoy it!"

Exactly so! Once I was in the company of some Japanese sailors watching Hamlet played at the chief theatre in San Francisco. They were astonished-men and women actually fondled each other on the stage! Such immodesty distressed them: they were not used to it, in public. And then the play was such a ridiculous jumble! No one could make any sense of it, nor tell what it was all about: so they soon grew tired and came away.

In this case of course we know that the fault was not in the play, but in the spectators; and is it not just possible that you yourself have been at fault sometimes with regard not to plays only, but to various other matters as well? Have you never given judgment where you lacked sympathy? Do not be surprised, then, if, when you

come to watch the Chinese actors, much of what they do should seem meaningless and foolish. Remember that their art was not framed for your particular amusement, but has grown up without one thought of you. And indeed what possible right have you to come with your ready-made tastes and condemn it because it is not what you are used to? Hosts of people are used to it, and like it; and their preference may well outweigh your condemnation, "heir of all the ages" though you be. Besides, if you could only view it aright, for all what you call the buffoonery of the actors, the play itself may be a veritable Chinese Hamlet for wisdom and beauty. At any rate act on that supposition, and sit till you can prove its truth or untruth.

But I said you would need patience, and you will! To see the whole play you will have to come at four in the afternoon and stay till midnight. You must not stir: there are no

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intervals, and you might mar all by this starting." You must watch intently the exits and entrances, note the disguises and transformations. An actor who has gone out scantily clad may reappear in flowing robes fourteen feet in circumference with a gorgeous helmet two feet high, but you must be able to recognise him: you must look beyond the streaming beard and moustache that hang so oddly in front of his face like a veil. You must not be deceived by appearances: "there are cozeners abroad." That hero is not necessarily dead because his head has apparently been cut off it may be he has only suffered enchantment; nor this man be alive because he is stalking round the stage with the others,-there are such

things as spirits and dreams, and this man may perchance be a dream or a spirit.

If you need an interpreter, find out a friendly Chinaman in the audience who can speak a little English-a washerman or a domestic servantand sit near him. Then, when a new character appears, you can make your inquiries. You may learn "him allee same good, him all light," and feel confidence in him accordingly; or it may be that your neighbour's opinion is unfavourable, and he thinks heap bad, him alle same debbil," when you will expect to find the new comer doing wickedly, even though he have no black and white paint on his face. Thus will be able to separate you the sheep from the goats.

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But if you are very sensitive or quick-tempered it will be best to keep away from these theatres. You may find, as I did once in Victoria, Vancouver's Island, that suddenly the rows of glistening heads around you are all turned so that their owners might cast their oblique looks upon you, full of enjoyment and satisfaction because of some joke that the chattering comedian upon the stage. has broken over your unconscious head; and this might destroy your self possession and lead to consequences. When one's skin is white one does not take such insolence well from heathen people.

In watching the play be careful to disregard the mannerisms of the actors: every stage is stagey.

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not allow yourself to be annoyed by the set, stalking gait, the short, quick stride, and the ridiculously sudden wheeling about of the men, nor by the distressingly affected and mincing airs of the ladies. Heed not that constantly recurring, rapid, curving fling of the leg, which seems to twist that member almost into a knot the movement may not be meaningless to the initiated, though it seems so to you. Learn to find pleasure in the lithe neatnesses of the actors, and in the quick, delicate movements of the

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wrist and hands with which they follow the music,-for there is music, and much of it, and a very important and characteristic part it plays. It is a mass of sound, forced from gongs and cymbals-several of each, perhaps, manned vigorously-from tomtoms, from curious loud fiddles, from mouth-instruments that emit a blare louder than a trumpet, and from twanging instruments with strings. Loud noises come from all the sound varies, but never ceases: it is incessant and stunning. Also it is Wagnerian and expresses sentiments: there is a love-motif on the cymbals, sorrow on the gong, joy on all the instruments together. Warriors enter to the clarionet and gong: marriages are celebrated on the gong: conversations, combats, deaths,-all require the gong. The gong is always with you. drowns the voice of the singers, though this will not cause you any additional sorrow, since the high screeching falsetto, which all the actors use except the low comedians, is not melodious to English ears. first this noise will cause you pain, uneasiness, confusion; but be patient, and gradually you will become accustomed to it. It will form an undertone to everything, like the sea, and you will come to regard it as a

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necessary constant, and feel a void when it stops. Its influence over you will be greater than you imagine: you will find little fragments of airs afterwards passing through your mind that you do not remember to have noticed in the din.

Certainly you must have patiencegreat patience. You must be prepared to witness endless repetitions: da capo stands over everything, even over mortal combats, deaths and executions. No need for you to applaud, or shout encore! Sit still, and you will see every action repeated over and over and over again, so that you can never forget it.

There is no scenery, but you will find something to admire in the richness, the variety, and picturesqueness

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of the costumes, and in the grotesque masks that are sometimes used. terrible painted faces of the bad men and comedians will amuse you; and you will notice no doubt that the ladies' faces are tinted with the colours you are familiar with, but that the pinkness covers the temples instead of the cheeks.

Then, as you are a mere ignorant spectator, unlearned in the language of the Chinese, and in their myths, legends, and histories, you will soon have a most engaging series of problems to solve, as you labour to follow the plot.

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Two heroes have been fightingwhy, and with what result? either dead? And if so, which of them? The man in magnificent raiment, with the earnest face, why does he warble so often and so painfully above his loose moustache? Are they mere ballads he sings to please the audience, or does his theme carry forward the plot? The grave old gentleman with wings in his helmetis he a terrestrial or a celestial? the

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superior personage who makes such fitful entrances-is he from above or below? What relationship exists between the two ladies? Is the elder a sister, or a mother, or a mother-inlaw? Do Chinese doctors always prise open the jaws of their reluctant patients with a short stick, before they administer doses? Whence this sudden accession of strength to the persecuted man, which enables him to become all at once the persecutor? Has the doctor's medicine, or his own long prayers, caused the grateful change?

Many things like these will trouble you, and you will form many false theories that will fall to the ground as the play goes on; but if you hold fast to the leading characters, giving them names of your own for reference, and closely follow their movements, you will emerge victorious at the end; and, unless your experience differs from mine, you will come away with the outline of a remarkable and often quite pleasing story in your mind. To you it is as though the play were

in dumb show and you must exercise your judgment in interpreting what you see. Amid a jumble of acrobatic performances and much pantomimic buffoonery, you will come here and there upon scenes full of dramatic force, scenes that, with very little alteration, would be considered powerful even on a European stage. Gleams of pathos and humour, of dignity and force, will sparkle out occasionally, and remain pleasantly in your memory after the rest is forgotten.

Let me give some instances from my own experience. I will begin with a pathetic piece that I saw once in Victoria, Vancouver's Island, which shall be called Two Broken Hearts. A maiden sits weeping on the stage. Her father, once a powerful mandarin, has had to fly with her from bitter enemies who still pursue them. She had fallen blind through the witchcraft and wicked spells of their persecutors, and, in their long flight, has been guided by grasping the shaft of her father's spear. Now they have. come, without friend or follower, to a desert place, and she has sunk down exhausted. Her father leaves her to rest for a few moments, while he goes out to reconnoitre; and she sits chanting a mournful song, meanwhile moving her hands aimlessly over the ground. Her fingers touch something: it is the handle of her father's sword, and, as she clutches it, her song suddenly stops. She shivers as she raises it and tries its keen edge; and then once more her song commences, more mournfully even than before. But it is soon stopped for ever, for she suddenly drops her neck over the edge of the sword, and quietly dies. Her father, who is close at hand, rushes frantically forward to prevent her, but too late. In his wild grief he snatches up the sword, stained with his darling's blood, and turns back desperately to desperately to meet his pursuers. Soon he returns with an arrow buried deeply in his shoulder, which he painfully draws, and dies, and so the scene ends.

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As to humour, I have heard it said that the Chinese have no sense of humour, but I do not believe it. What else is it that I have sometimes caught gleaming in the bright eyes of bland, grave house-servants? What else has caused the deep, low chuckle, coming from somewhere lower than the throat, that I have heard run through a group of Chinamen as they listened to the jocose narrative of a friend's doings? Perhaps the form their humour takes upon the stage will hardly satisfy the western standard. Here is a sample which I saw in the "Big Grand Theatre" at San Francisco. It shall be called The Ghost Who Hated Bores. The hero, a sea-captain, comes in and seats himself at a table to write; but he is heavy with sleep, his head soon droops, and he falls into a peaceful slumber. But scarcely has his nap begun when he is disturbed by the hasty entrance of a breathless fellow who begins, with an air of great consequence, to pant out a long tale of not the slightest importance. captain listens for a time with wideopen eyes, but when he finds that the story has settled down into an uninterrupted sing-song which shows no prospect of reaching an early conclusion, he tries to break the thread of the narrative. All in vain, for the tedious fellow represses his interruptions with a deprecatory wave of the hand, and goes on his monotonous way with head thrown back and eyes half closed in an ecstacy of delight at having secured a listener. After a time the captain submitting to the inevitable, adopts the wisest course in the circumstances, and dozes off to sleep again. The bore is so satisfied with himself, and so engrossed in his tale, that he never notices this, and still goes on, see-saw, sing-song, with never a stop till the audience (or at least one of them) grew as weary as the captain. But a mysterious avenger is at hand. A limping ghost of horrible appearance, who remembers his own sufferings on earth, hops in unseen to befriend the captain. He squats

silently behind the chair of the storyteller, holding the club he carries in readiness to strike, while that worthy is still quite unconsciously jabbering his interminable nonsense. Once the club is raised threateningly over him, and twice, and yet he goes on then a thundering stroke descends on his shoulders which stops his voice so suddenly that it leaves him with open mouth in the middle of a word. In comical terror he gazes about in vain attempts to find out whence the blow came, then, in amazement, seizes the sleeper and rouses him to tell of this terrible new affair. But the captain listens with hazy inattention, evidently thinking it some more of the same tale, and dozes off again immediately. The bore, abandoned now to the tender mercies of the spectre, runs hither and thither in horror, adopting first one plan and then another to discover or avoid his invisible assailant; but the ghost crawls after him wherever he goes, now clubbing, now clutching him, until at last the poor wretch makes his escape half dead with fright, and the captain is left to sleep in peace, while the ghost curls up by his side like a faithful dog whose labours are done.

What an example for European ghosts! And what a sphere of usefulness for ancestral spectres is here indicated! Surely it would pay to import a Chinese ghoul of this kind to instruct our gibbering idiotic phantoms in their duties. Indeed this ghost was in every way a model ghost, and that man might count himself rich who could boast the friendship of such a one. For the faithful thing

laboured in the interests of its friend all through the play. The captain had much heavy fighting to do; and whenever a combat took place the brave phantom was always at hand to hover on the outskirts of the fight, like Mephistopheles, and put in blows with his terrible club upon the enemy whenever an opportunity occurred.

I have seen occasional touches of Rabelaisian coarseness in their humour,

as when, in Victoria, the comedian professed to play the prank of Gargantua in Paris upon the orchestra; but in spite of this in the scenes between the sexes the acting is really refined and delicate.

Nor must you think that there is no dignity in these plays. I have watched many graceful and impressive tableaux, and I was always pleased with the rather frequent altar-scenes, when prayers and oblations were offered by the characters of the drama. In one case I heard the audience join, with a low hum, in chanting a prayer which was evidently familiar to them. And the following scene that I saw in the chief theatre at San Francisco, was incomparably more impressive than the angels at the Lyceum. There entered in solemn state a procession of superior persons deities, perhaps, or kings, or ancestral spirits-in magnificent raiment, with wings to their towering helmets and shoulders. With grave majesty they ranged themselves silently around their leader, who uttered a few impressive words to which they replied in curt ringing sentences, or by simply nodding the head in silent acquiescence; then solemnly and mysteriously the procession filed out again

and was seen no more. I felt that in those brief sentences, the doom of men and of nations had been pronounced; and I did not wonder at the awesome effect that the scene produced on the audience.

Thus, all through, amid much that is pantomimic and tedious you will find little fragments of better things that will encourage you, and make you wish to know more. And when you have watched the whole play, and, by translating the dumb show and piecing together your notes and recollections, have come to have an idea of what the plot may be, you will find a perfectly logical and connected story, at least as good as those that form the bases of many a modern melodrama; and you will possibly conclude that the drama itself has a merit greater than that of the actors therein, whose whimsical doings, along with the enthusiastic energy displayed by the gong-player and orchestra generally, will send you out into the open air at midnight with a peculiarly confused feeling in the head as though a large number of fantastic dreams had been holding high holiday there.

G. W. LAMPLUGH.

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