The floor of the building was arranged with rows of chairs facing squarely, by way of stalls, surrounded by a row of the boxes I have described, where the chairs went sideways. Above jutted out a broad balcony with a similar row of boxes, and above that again, jammed under the ceiling, was a dense crowd of poor people, standing on what was really only a ledge with an iron rail; and they looked positively more like huge black and white flies clinging to the ceiling than anything else.
Everything looked as if it must fall down or break up, but no one seemed to be worrying about their doom, in fact all the faces were remarkably pleasant and jolly.
The stage was a fairly large one, with a row of electric footlights, which waxed and waned and waxed again at their own sweet will, and quite regardless of the needs of the performance. In front of the stage, on the floor-level, was an orchestra of natives who really played very well indeed, and they and all the men in the audience were in white, which looks very quaint until one’s eye is accustomed to it.
The piece performed was an operetta called “La Indiana,” a rather confused story about some old Mestizo with a white beard, whose son had secretly married an Indian, which is the word the Spaniards use for the Filipinos, and is employed by the Filipinos themselves as well, when talking Spanish. Well, the old father informed his son, an appalling, gawky, young Mestizo in a black morning coat, pepper and salt tweed trousers, and a very bright blue tie, that he must marry a white (Mestiza) girl of his, the father’s choosing. On hearing which, the hero sang a song to the effect that he would abandon the Indiana, and had a long duet with that personage to explain that they would just say nothing at all about being married. Then all the chorus came in again, the old father blessed the hero and the “white” girl, whereupon the Indiana, a frightfully ugly Filipina with a fine voice, sang a long and frenzied solo with her hair down—and then the curtain fell.
I thought there must be another act, and was very much surprised to find that was the conclusion of the story. But evidently, to the native imagination, the plot was complete and the ends of poetic justice satisfied. They did not really act and sing as badly as I had expected, though, when one came to think of “La Indiana” as a public performance in a theatre, it really verged on audacity. No attempt at scenery or dress was made, the whole action taking place in a bare, worn, old “set” of a room, the usual stage room, unlike anything else on earth, and the only attempt at costume was the substitution of very ugly old European blouses for the camisa, which was a fatal mistake.
We left after the first piece, though there were to be two more of the same sort, for it was very dull and depressing. There is nothing in these Filipinos, you see, for they have not the melodious voices of negroes, nor the faultless ear of Spaniards, nor the fine physique of Chinese, nor the taste of Japanese—they are simply dull, blunt, limited intelligences, with the ineffable conceit of such a character all over the world, and when they break out into a display such as “La Indiana,” all these deplorable qualities show up in the glare of the white light that beats even upon an Iloilo stage.
Yesterday we went for a delightful drive out along the Jaro road, off which we turned a little way beyond the town, and went down a rough, sandy track to the banks of a broad, half-dried-up river, not the Iloilo river, but another parallel to it, or a branch.
Riding a Carabao.