The New York herald., 1922-08-06
BY ELIZABETH ANN ENGLAND.


bait of yellow liant hung on
black and white truck, lanterns fore
IDLY brought to their attention by a
tom-tom chant, "See China town,
See Chinatown. See the unn-durr-
wurrld and the Bow-werr-reeI" have
few of them had any chance to see
the really big attraction of this sea-
York.
The big attraction might not in
terest them anyhow. 1t might be a
thing too cheerful, too obviously free
from hocus-pocus and from mystery.
1t might not provide sufficient salts
faction for a craving to see strange
sights and desire to take a perfectly
safe slanting glance at the eity's
sinister shadows. These careful
travellers huddled together right be-
hind the megaphone man on this
rash tour to what they think to be
kind of crime shrine might find
nothing notable in jolly crowd with
many family parties out to attend
the opera. eager to be among those
present at the first night perform
ance.
For a new theater movement has
come to Chinatown. A man from
Canton has dared to change the
classics of the stage of Asia. OF the
seyenty-two standard operas of his
home town Chin lux Sun Of No.
Mott street has rewritten fifty-nine.
Between the middle OF January anG
the last of July the entire fifty-nine
have been presented by company
of forty-five members, half of whom
are professionals of considerable
reputation in Canton and Honolulu.
Three separate engagements have
been played in Chatham square, each
more successful than the one pre-
ceding. Between the two local en-
gagements the company played Phil
adelphia two weeks and Boston six
weeks. returning to New York to
close the season by presenting to the
Cantonese colony of Mott and Pell
and Doyers streets twenty-seven diff
ferent operas during the month of
July.
The company does not belong to
Chin Yuk Sun. though his reyisions
of the classics have probably been
the greatest single factor in securing
for them such notable success. The
venture has been cooperative. Not
only the actors but the musicians as
well shared the initial cost of the
costumes and the stage setting.
Finding a house to play in has
been difficult matter The com
pany has moved from pillar to post,
playing in the old Italian theater on
the Bowery. in various halls: once
for charity in the old Chinese thea
ter in Doyers street. closing the sea-
son in an old motion picture theater
just at the foot of the Chatham
Square elevated station. Where they
will open next fall is not certain.
But the members of the cast are ex-
pecting TO form a permanent com
pany for New York city. Most OF
them are residents of the local colony
of Cantonese.
These forty-five men have a right
to take rank as founders of a new
theater movement for the Chinese in.
America. The classics as they were
are known by heart to nearly every
merchant and to every other coolie.
But the classics as they are now, in
the Chin Yuk Sun revision, are
known to nobody until after he has
attended a performance.
Some of the operas have had the
lines. almost entirely rewritten. The
titles are the same as they always
were, the characters are familiar. the
stage setting is conventional. But
when the actors appear the things
they do are utterly unexpected. the
speeches surprising.
The auGacity and the ingenuity of
these brethren of the Pear Orchard.
as China calls her players, sends
gusts of laughter through the audi
ence and round after round of ap-
plause reaches the stage. The new
onaraS arc NOT hurlesaueS of the old.