Naturally the spectators would grow tired gazing at such a thing, so between acts the ladies visit one another, and the men rise in their seats, put on their hats, turn their backs toward the stage, and survey the people, English fashion. They smoke their cigarettes, chat to one another, and discuss the women. The cow-bell rings again, people commence to embrace and kiss, and when the third bell rings, hats are off, cigarettes extinguished, and every one in place in time to see the curtain, after being down for thirty minutes, rise.
Theaters close anywhere between 12.30 and three o'clock. The audience applaud very little, unless some one is murdered artistically. If a few feel like applauding other fine points, they are quickly silenced by the thousands of hisses which issue from all quarters of the house, and a Mexican hiss has no equal in the world. Ladies do not applaud, never look pleased or interested, but sit like so many statues, calmly and stupidly indifferent. After the play every one who can afford it goes to some restaurant for refreshments. Mexicans are not easily pleased with plays; and the only time they enjoy themselves is when they have a "Zarzuela"—a cross between a comic opera and a drama. Then they forget to hiss, and enter into the spirit of the play with as much vim as an American.
Some Mexicans are quite famous as play-writers. When a new piece is ready for the boards a house is rented, and it is presented in fine style, the occasion being a sort of social gathering. Being invited, the other night, to attend one, I concluded to see what it was like. The author had one of his plays translated into English—the name now forgotten—which has met with great success in the States. I thought this would be endurable. As I entered with some ladies an usher in full dress and white kid gloves presented each of us with beautiful bouquets, and offering his arm to the ladies, escorted the party to the box with the air and manner of a prince. Once in the box, he gave us little programmes, went out, and locked the door. Interested, I watched the people as they came in and arranged themselves comfortably. Much amused and even disconcerted we were when we found hundreds of glasses turned our way and held there long and steadily, as they saw we were "greengoes," or foreigners, and with feminine timidity we thanked our lucky stars we had ventured forth without a bonnet—as no woman ever wears a hat to the theater here—so that the difference would not have been more pronounced.
At last the curtain went up, and before the actress, who was sitting on a chair, crying, could issue one blubber, dozens of bouquets were flung at her feet. Not understanding the words the play seemed most absurd. Apparently the girl could not marry her lover because her mother had forbidden it, as another sister loved the same man, and as he did not reciprocate she was dying; the dying sister appeared but once, then in a nightdress, and soon afterward screamed heartily behind the scenes and was pronounced dead by the actors. The men and women cried continuously all the evening, and Americans dubbed the play "The Pocket-Handkerchief." Once, when the lover told his sweetheart he was going out to fight a duel with a dude with a big eye-glass, who had loved the dead girl, she fainted on his breast and he held her there, staggering beneath her weight, while he delivered a fifteen-minute eulogy. As she was about two feet taller and twice as heavy as he, the scene was most comical, particularly when she tried to double up to reach his shoulder, and forgot she had fainted and moved her hands repeatedly. But smothering our American mirth we looked on in sympathy. How it ended I cannot tell, for at 2 o'clock I started for home and the players were then weeping with as much vigor as when the curtain first rose.
The carvings and finishing of the National Theater are superb. It is surpassed by few in the States, but the walls are smeared and dirty—no curtains deck the boxes, uncomfortable chairs are alone procurable, and, all in all, the house is about as filthy as one can find in Mexico. It is rumored that Sarah Bernhardt is to come to Mexico next December with a French troupe, and as French is as common as Spanish here, she will doubtless have large houses. It is to be hoped the managers will awaken to the fact that the house needs a scrubbing down and fumigating before that time.
As stated before, young men do not need to keep back their washerwoman's money to be able to take their best girl to the theater. A gentlemen and lady are never seen alone; even husband and wife, if they have no friends, take a servant along.
Mexico supports a circus all winter. They have an amphitheater built for the purpose, and it is the best lighted and cleanest spot in the city. It is open afternoons and evenings, except Monday. The seats are arranged theater-like—pit, boxes and balconies. Some very good performing is done, but Spanish jokes by the clowns and very daring feats on horseback are the only acts which gain applause from the Mexicans. The menagerie, for which they charge twenty-five cents extra, is not well attended, as the people can see more in the museum for nothing, and they prefer the beasts stuffed, to being stuffed themselves or stuffing another man's purse for the sight of a lion, monkey and striped donkey.