The French diplomat devotes one chapter to the theater. He writes before the Revolution, but most things connected with the theater have been changed very little. He reports one abuse, however, which the Revolution (1912) abolished. Page 144: “La prostitution féminine reste discrète, car la femme est toujours tenue à l’écart; mais la prostitution masculine s’étale au grand jour; il n’est guère de pàrtie de théâtre où l’amphitryon ne réunisse ses amis d’abord au restaurant et ne convie quelques jeunes garçons de bonne mine, richement habillés, sachant causer et ‘rendre le vin plus agréable’; ils plaisantent et rient avec les convives, les accompagnent au théâtre et restent avec eux jusqu’à ce que, la fête finie, chacun rentre chez soi. Naturellement, aux simples lettrés on ne demande que leur bonne humeur, et ce sont les riches qui paient la note; bien de fils de famille se ruinent de cette façon.”
The Yellow Jacket. A Chinese play done in the Chinese manner, in three acts, by George C. Hazelton and Benrimo. Bobbs-Merrill, 1913.
This play represents a unique example of Chinese influence producing a worth-while drama on our stage. Will Irwin was kind enough to write to me concerning its origin:
“... I can tell you the history of the play. Harry Benrimo, actor and stage-director, is a native of San Francisco. He saw much of the Chinese in California. His father was a contractor, employing Chinese labor and doing business with Chinese merchants. As a young actor, Benrimo became interested in the Chinese theaters of San Francisco. That was the golden age of the Chinese theater in America. The price of admission made the Jackson Street Company and the Washington Street Company rich on Chinese standards and they were able to get some great actors—just as the money from the Metropolitan Opera drew Caruso from Italy. Ah Chic, leading tragedian of the Jackson Street Company, was as great an actor as I ever saw.... Benrimo sketched out a scenario made not from any one Chinese play, but from a dozen—situations or bits of business or dialogue which he remembered from his old days in San Francisco theaters. Benrimo called into collaboration the late George Hazelton, playwright. On this scenario they worked out The Yellow Jacket.... Several Chinese, notably one man—name forgotten—from the Consulate helped with the rehearsals. Deliberately the authors took certain liberties with Chinese drama and psychology in order to make the play effective for an Occidental audience. Notably, they made the love of man for woman the main theme. One piece of business, I remember, caused endless dispute. It is where the happy and united lovers kiss. That would not happen, of course, with the Chinese. Benrimo understood that perfectly. But he said that an Occidental audience would expect it. And he had his way. I remember that whenever this piece of business occurred in the rehearsals, the man from the Consulate used to giggle.
“Lately I was talking over The Yellow Jacket with Percy Hammond, dramatic critic. ‘Do you know what made it a success?’ he said, ‘The Property Man as played by Shaw.’ Possibly he’s right about that. But the play served its artistic purpose. It made American audiences understand something of this extraordinary art. And I’ve no doubt but that if Hazelton and Benrimo had stuck close to the originals our audiences wouldn’t have understood half so well.”
So far as my experience goes, making love the main theme is not un-Chinese, but The Property Man as played on our stages is. Possibly Cantonese usage differs in this respect, but in Peking property men are always on the stage, coolies dressed in shabby blue cotton, but they are conspicuous only to the Westerner not used to Chinese conventions. They by no means have the importance attached to them in The Yellow Jacket. Compare the chapter, “External Aspects.”
The Chinese Drama. R. F. Johnston. Kelly & Walsh, 1921.
A slender volume that came to be written because the publishing firm had four paintings of Chinese actors which they wanted to issue in calendar form with a few words of comment from the well-known sinologue. Mr. Johnston became absorbed in the subject and wrote so much and so interestingly on it that Kelly & Walsh decided to make a book out of it. The text is much better than the pictures.
Le Théâtre Chinois. Chu Chia-chien. Paris, 1922.
The chief features of this book are the excellent paintings and sketches made in Peking theaters by the Russian artist, Alexandre Jacovleff. An English edition has been published by Putnam. No other book can give such a vivid notion of the real appearance as well as the spirit of the Chinese stage as this volume of inspired drawings. M. Chu Chia-chien, instructor in the École des Langues Orientales in Paris, writes well, but too briefly, on the conditions and conventions of the Chinese stage.