The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-07-05

swearing got the\ scenery into some
sort of shape
Right outside the theatre a plank
had been stretched at the height of a
mans elbow and an assortment of
! liquors and tobacco displayed. The
chief OF police, a Filipino, was direct
ing the arrangement Of the improvised
bar. He spoke some English and
proved a nice chap on acquaintance.
He became much interested in a
search for props" Props" are those
vague accessories to stage settings, the
presence of which may so almost un-
noticed. but the absence Of which may
4 disrupt an entire play. When the
villain FORCES the letter he must at
least have an inkstand and penholder,
even if there is no ink and If the pen
won't write.
In every well regulated drawing
room there must be a sofa, some
chairs. perhaps a pier glass and a few
pictures.
Stuffed furniture is considered de
riguer for stage drawing rooms, out
in all CaVite there was not one piece
OF that description. So they had 10 Be
content with plain, yellow BAMBOO
and what was spoken Of by the actors
as "a luxurious interior was furnished
only with a half dozen bamboo chairs,
a bamboo table and the BARRIERS mir
rOr The barber was discharged
Tennesseean. and for a ticket to the
performance he offered even his oper-
ating chair A wash bowl and pitcher
were borrowed from the Army Or
fcers' club. and several saloons loaned
! glasses and gay looking decanters.
The sergeant and his squad were told
off to get chairs for the audience, as,
except for the remnants near the stage
and a row of circus benches at the en-
trance. the auditorium was empty.
Perhaps the sandy uniform of the ser
geant and his aids carried a certain
command, and perhaps there were rec
| objections Of the late days when the
househOlders were used to seeing such
fellows in khaki with their eyes
screwed to the sights of rifles. Any
how. there was a food of chairs Of
fered and when the Grand opera house
was filled with the mthey were dec
grated with numbers to aid the ushers.
The curtain was advertised TO rise
at $3.50 O'Clock. and about O'Clock the
cast arrived from Manila. The haJ
dozen American women in the COM
pany looked very dainty in pretty,
light frocks. and all the population or
Cavite gathered to see them lano.
There were hundreds of natives in gala
attire, their gauze shirts hanging out
side their drill trousers and their VIVID
plush slippers almost as lamps 10
their IeeL. w men III MS bCSN -
Filipino always hangs the tails of his
upper garment over his trousers. 1t
is a cool fashion. the shirts being OF
pima or jussi. much like a silken net
Mercy! Is this it?" said the leading
lady.
comedian.
In FIVE minutes a hundred complaints
had been registered with Frawley ana
the stage manager The leading lady
refused positively to share her dresStllS
room with all the other women Even
IL zone night stands in Oklahoma ana
Kansas she had never been so badly
treated, she said
The leading juvenile came with Whls-
pered curses to let it be known that
he would rather resign then and there
than doff and don his clothes on the
sea wall. But they all had to make
the best Of the facts, for there was but
one dressing room for each sex, and
"makeups' were daubed on by candle
light. The electric wires only stretched
over the stage, and grease paint and
wings went on with n low murmuring
like the hoarse muttering of the mob
in Julius Caesar"
About s O'Clock the audience began
to come in. The first arrivals were
natives. The women wore the largest
and stiffest Of panuelos and had their
hair highly polished with cocoanut oil
and ornamented with silver Skewers.
Some had stockings. but most of them
We're content with their own dark skins
and shuffied in with naked ankles. All
officialdom honored the show by its
presence. The gobernaOr, the presi-
dente and a half-dozen others had front
seats. The box office was manage by
former Chronicle reporter, and was
damned with ticket buyers. Opposite
it was the ready made bar. and, after
buying reserved places, tars and sol
diers fraternized over glasses of the
fluid which is claimed TO have made
Milwaukee famous.
Many of the men had no money. as
pay day had passed fortnight, but
so obliging and anxious to repay the
actors and actresses for their journey
were the officers of the army and navy
that they had been furnished with has
tily made scrip, and their notes were
taken by the theatre treasurer. These
amounts we held out of each mans
paw at the next disbursement.
The officers and a handful of Ameri-
can women-their wives and sisters
stroNed in Ieisurely from their quar-
ters about the time set for the cur
tain. and the orchestra tuned up. A
dozen musicians. all Filipinos, stuck
pretty closely to American national
airs, with a spTinkling of Spanish and
sO-called Filipino pieces. THE Aguin-
aldo March" is a decided favOrite with
the natives and is a lively cOnceit.
Aguinaldo used to teach school near
Cavite, and it was in this province
that the revolution began in 1895 The
bumptious little Tagal was not at the
show. but one of his most noted gen
erals sat in the orchestra circle. and
pretended to understand the stage do
ings.
It was half-past o'clock before the
curtain was carefully handed up by
two men to a third who nailed il to
a rafter. It was too big for the pro-
scenium arch and between acts it fell
with thUd when the aerial artist
pulled out he spike.
Just before the first act began there
was a series of shrieks from behind
the curtain. Several of the ladies
rushed frantically onto the stage-not
in view of the audience. though-and
Mary Van Buren,. the female star of
the company, protested that an ALI
gator had come through n hole in the
floor of her dressing room and had at
tackled them. Frawley and I armed
ourselves with some property brooms
and bearded the saurian. It proved
not to be an alligator but q gigantic
iguana. a reptile which is not consid-
cred harmful by the natives. He was
about four feet long. though. and bv
the misty light of the candles looked
ferocious enough to scare women un-
used to his kind
The floor Of all the dressing rooms
and the stage. too was of sliced BAN
boo laid a quarter Of an inch apart
and in some places two or three Stats
were missing. 50 that one had To no
careful not 10 sin into the holes The
elasticity of this odd flooring caused one