It seems that at a certain benefit in Virginia City, "Ingomar" was the play, Mr. McCullough sustaining the title role and Mr. Raymond played Polydor. Polydor, it will be remembered, is the old Greek duffer who has a mortgage on Myron's real estate, and presses for payment in hopes to get Parthenia's hand in marriage. The performance went beautifully, and the applause was liberal, for McCullough was playing his best. Raymond was the crookedest and most miserly of Polydors, and the savage intensity he threw into his acting surprised all who imagined he could only play light comedy. All went more than well until Ingomar offered himself as a slave to Polydor in payment of Myron's little account. "What, you?" screamed Polydor, and, apparently overcome by the thought, he "took a tumble," and fell forward upon Ingomar. Ingomar stepped back in dismay, when Polydor, on all fours, crept nimbly between his sturdy legs and tried to climb up on his back. The audience "took a tumble," and the roof quivered and the walls shook with roars of laughter. "D—n you," groaned Ingomar, sotto voce, "if I only had you at the wings?" But Polydor nimbly eluded his grasp, and, knocking right and left the dozen supes, who were on as the army, he skipped to the front of the stage and climbed up out of reach of the projecting mouldings of the proscenium. Here he clung, and, to make matters worse, grinned cheerfully at the pursuers he had escaped, and rapidly worked the string of a trick wig, the long hair of which flapped up and down in the most ludicrous fashion. It was impossible for the play to proceed, and the curtain was rung down, leaving Polydor still on his lofty perch, while the audience laughed and shouted itself hoarse. And this is the reason why Mr. McCullough said, "No, sir, never again!" to Mr. Raymond's offer.
FAY TEMPLETON IN "BILLEE TAYLOR."
I may add that among the young people of the stage who are possessed of that personal magnetism that makes them popular, is Fay Templeton, who is not only pretty, but thoroughly original.
CHAPTER XXIV.
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.