The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-12-25

I viewed the show from seat IN
Niger Heaven, or, in other words, the
Peanut Gallery. Either name would
convey your meaning TO any young
ster brought up in the. city. As there
seemed to be no ushers, after the man
at the door had taken my ticket, |
started in the direction of what would
lead in any Of the America theaters
TO the orchestra chairs, but found my
way blocked by the man at the door,
sign language that l could not go that
way, and pointed determined-lookin
finger to narrow stairway which led
upward.
When | had purchased my ticket at
the funny little hole of box office,
not being able to speak .ile language,
and receiving no enlightenment from
the bunch of hieroglyphics on red
Autograph background, which was
pasted over the window, I had simply
put down my money, taken the ticket
and the change handed me, and walk.
ed on, taking it for granted that the
Chinese ticket seller had learned enough
Npf American ways to sell me the most
seat in the house. So, when
I found my way blocked and was di-
rected to a queer little stairway lead
ing | knew not where, was inclined
i TO stop and argue the matter.
However, | found this was useless,
SO l gathered my skirts and made a
make-believe bold, brave dash up. the
stairs. After two turns, | arrived, but
not at the orthodox Niger Heaven
gallery which | had expected. Instead
| found sort of Adamless Eden
that is, small gallery in which only
women. girls, and small children were
allowed.
All the occupants stopped their chat
ter to turn and stare at me and then
started to chatter again louder than
ever, but whether about me or the per-
Torrance / was unable to tell. sat
down where I could see the stage and
waited for one of the actors to look
up and either quiet the women with a
look or give them calling down. /
had once attended performance when
Nat Goodwin had refused to go on with
his show until several noisy boys were
elected from the theater and on another
occasion had seen Louis James step
from a Shakespearean character to
quietly call down a box full of gig
Cling, chatting matinee girls. I hated
to be one of a gallery full of women
to be publicly called down, but | con-
soled myself by thinking what novel
ty it would be to see how a Chinese
actor would do it. But the actor who
occupied the center of the stage at
+ba4 10 ~
ton to us but calmly waved his fan
and was startled most out of my wits
by the din which followed.
A Chinese actor certainly has novel
way of calling down a group of noisy
/ women. He simply makes a sign to
the orchestra and the musicians drown
the women out with a noise ten times
AS loud and noisy as anything you could
Hgfnagine. It did, not zseem to bother |
him one bit that the noise he had call |
ed forth to drown out the women was |
at the same time running his intensely |
dramatic scene, for he continued to |
strut and fan and act for all he was |
Worth and no on1 could hear a word |
be was saying.
While the actor was strutting to the |
Inferno music, looked over the gallery |
railing to get view of the rest of |
the house and found that while the up
per part of the theater was very I'M |
American in putting the high-priced- |
: seat purchasers in the gallery, the low |
er half was very much English for /
found myself looking into regular pit. /
The pit was filed with hundred or
more Cinnamon, most of whom were |!
smoking while some few were watch /
ing the performance with interested !
faces, just as though they could UNI
derstand what that actor was ranting
about with all of that music playing. /
After the actor had decided that we |
had been punished enough he again |
waved his fan and the musicians
stepped suddenly with the same kind
of startling crash as they had start
ed WITH only worse.
When the orchestra had quoted down
I picked up enough courage to take a
good look at the stage and regretted |
very deeply that I could not have bor-
rowed the playwrfting mantle of Geo.
Abe for the occasion. I can think of moth