Vaudeville Stunts in Mountain Settlements.
Little mountain settlements in the region of Julian, Cal., have their vaudeville circuits, and they are as important to the people and afford them as much pleasure as Keith’s or the Orpheum afford pleasure seekers of the large cities.
The players are generally Mexicans. They travel by wagon or burro, coming up from lower California, swinging across the mining region, and turning south again into the peninsula.
A handbill pinned to the door of the post office or store is the only program. It announces, in Spanish, that a company of artists, unsurpassed for excellence, will be honored to entertain the people at greatly reduced prices—fifteen cents for children and twenty-five cents for adults, whereas in large cities, like Ensenada, the company wouldn’t attempt to do the same thing for less than a dollar admission.
Sometimes the performance is acrobatic; sometimes it is a concert, with accordion and guitar, to be followed with a dance; again it may be an old-fashioned Punch and Judy show, or a roaring comedy, the actors speaking their lines in Spanish, which, by the way, makes no difference to the border folks, all of whom understand that tongue.
In addition to the handbill, a crier goes through the vicinity, announcing from house to house the merits of the performers, and urging everybody not to miss this last and only chance to see and hear so rare a collection of stars, who, meanwhile, are preparing their evening meal beside the road and making their beds under a tree.
The play is staged wherever shelter can be found—in schoolhouse or some large barn, or, more likely, in the dance hall, for nearly every settlement has such a place. The settings are easily procured. A plank across the tops of two barrels may serve either as a terrible abyss or a shaded silvan walk.
The following morning the all-star troupe rolls out of its separate and individual blankets, cooks breakfast in the open, jumps astride burros, or tumbles into a wagon and makes for the next-night stand.