Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1921-04-13

/. +
I Japanese Make Up for All
Nationalities
Dear Advertiser:
On Friday of last week, the music
idepartment here gave a very lovely
Eeperetta with the cast taken from the
IEEeshman, Sophmore, Junior and Sc
Nor classes.
E The operetta was japanese as you
fWiH instantly recognise when I say
Ef5at the name was so Hara San"
lEsgIt seemed very funny tosee Swedes,
Poles, Italians, Slovanians, Firms, Aus
Etrans and Englishmen playing the
part of the dark and dainty Japanese.
ttBItSa little paint and a few skillfully
drawn lines transform even a Polish
tface into Japanese, and a black wig
lat once disguises the very light hair
Eof Finn. Such is the advantage of
makeup.
The costumes consisted of gor-
Igeous, richly embroidered satin robes
lof red and ,lue and black and yellow
Tor the r, ,ipals, and dainty XII
(monas and j coolie costumes.
sSince t s5umes came from
IMinnear he stage properties
tWere MAJ. re occasion by the
manual training teacher, Mr.. Cross
Ewho can build anything, the enter
tainment had a very professional
nature.
ssI suppose. the person in Aurora
who would have really appreciated
The operetta most was Sing Lee, the
the Chinese laundryman here, but
|doubtless he knew nothing about it
and did not see it. And, anyway, if
THE; attempt to make an oriental
character out of a strictly occidental
fails to. appeal to him as the making
|of negro out of a white person on
Ithe stage fails to appeal to me, he
would not have enjoyed it. Aurora
who knows the negro as southerner
docs, knows that his peculiarly inter-
IIsssting traits can not be produced by
EaSperson of another race and / sup
pose lit is the same way with the jap
.aanese al butswe who do not really know
L. stfI 4 n # SileTers if we
can Copy them even v poorly.
The plot was something like this,
typical of all the old love stories, not
only of Japan, but of every nation:
the daughter of a famous japanese
family was in love with the son of an
other japanese house. The Prince,
the favored suffer of the father and
mother, made the necessary third side
to the triangular problem.
Her favored suiter was on the eve
of his departure to America where he
was to study for year, and at the
end of that time if he did not return,
O Hara San would have to marry the
Prince.
O Hara San looked like the real
japanese with the realistic wig and a
very lovely kimona, but should you
have seen her the day before or the
day after you would have recognized
her as a Swede or at any rate a Scan
dinavian. So did her father and
mother, the stern parents look like
japanese of the most conservative
order but shortly after the per-
formance they became Finn and an
Italian respectively.
The hero, o Karlie Kentara was a
Pole, and this one time Poland got
its rights, for the hero returned in
the nick of time, true to BOOKS, ana
rescuedthe girl from the scowling
Prince who was most oriental and
successful in his acting. That was be-
cause he was English, and the Eng
lish seem to be generally accepted
as among the very greatest actors.
So all this League of Nations kept
in perfect harmony by the aid OF the
orchestra, composed of almost as
many nationalities as were repre-
sented on the stage.
There are so many types of Amer
lean people and American clothes and
American homes that I doubt if the
Japanese could find anything just
typical enough for this melting pot to
49, .. +b. coona for an operetta.