There is no curtain,
and there are no stage accessories. The audience is thus enabled
to concentrate its whole attention on the acting. Female parts
are played by men, and everything is beautifully simple. There is no attempt
to produce such elaborate effects as I have seen in the West,
and of course nothing at all resembling the pantomime,
which frequently requires mechanical arts. A newspaper paragraph
caught my eye while thinking of this subject. I reproduce it.
"The Century Theater in New York City has special apparatus
for producing wind effects, thunder and lightning simultaneously.
The wind machine consists of a drum with slats which are rotated
over an apron of corded silk, which produces the whistling sound of wind;
the lightning is produced by powdered magnesium electrically ignited;
thunder is simulated by rolling a thousand pounds of stone, junk and chain
down a chute ending in an iron plate, followed by half-a-dozen cannon balls
and supplemented by the deafening notes of a thunder drum."
Although, however, Chinese play-goers do not demand
the expensive outfits and stage sceneries of the West, I must note here
that not even on the American stage have I seen such gorgeous costumes,
or robes of so rich a hue and displaying such glittering gold ornaments
and graceful feathers, as I have seen on the simple Chinese stage
I have just described. Western fashions are having a tendency
in our ports and larger cities to modify some things that I have stated
about Chinese theatrical performances, but the point I wish especially
to impress on my readers is that theatrical performances in China,
while amusing and interesting, are seldom melodramatic,
and as I look back on my experiences in the United States,
I cannot but think that the good people there are making a mistake
in not utilizing the human natural love for excitement and the drama
as a subsidiary moral investment.
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