A QUAINT TALE FROM THE ORIENT
"The Yellow Jacket"-The Fulton Theater, November 4, 1912

It seems thrice a pity that there is not yet organized in New York a branch of the Drama League, or some kindred organization, which could come to the rescue of "The Yellow Jacket," now struggling for survival at the Fulton Theater. For here is one of the most interesting, novel and well-mounted plays of the season, suffering the usual fate of the innovator. Yet those who do see it come away delighted. It needs an "organized audience" to give it a helping hand.

"The Yellow Jacket is not a wasp. It is a real Chinese play, or rather a mosaic of several Chinese plays, adapted by George C. Hazelton and the actor, Benrimo, and staged by the latter. Mr. Benrimo came from the old San Francisco, and he has observed the Chinese Theater for many years. It is said he is more familiar with its methods than almost any other American, at least any American connected with our stage. We must therefore believe that when he says he has staged "The Yellow Jacket" in the Chinese manner he is telling the trutyh. Anyhow, he has staged it in a manner totally different from our own, a manner quaint, childlike, naïve-and beautiful. It seems to us authentically Orintal, different, primitive, and we yield to its spell. That is the main thing. If he has also shown us a true picture of Chinese theatrical customs and conventions, so much the better.

We do not pretend to know the names of th eoriginal sources of "The Yellow Jacket," nor whether they were works of the Ming dynasty or some other dynasty, whether they are six hundred old or six. The chances are they antedate Shakespeare, of course. As the play has reached us, it is a simple little story, with allegorical and fantastic embellishments, of mother love and brave-hearted youth triumphant over obstacles, and rewarded at last by the lips of a lady fair. It is a tale old as this old earth.

It seems that Wu Sin Yin, governor of a province, had two wives. The first one had given birth to an infant, Wu Hoo Git, who was regarded as ugly by all save his mother, Chee Moo. Now Wu Sin Yin wished to get her and the brat out of the way that he might have a beautiful heir by his second wife, so he ordered a farmer to kill her. The farmer, however, killed a flirtatious maid instead mutilating her features to escape detection, and little Wu Hoo Git was carried off by the farmer and h is wife (Chee Moo having died) and raised secretly as their foster child.

When next we see him, Wu Hoo Git has come to man's estate. He is now a beautiful youth, going forth to see the world and conquer back his kingdom from the elegant Wu Fab Din, child of the second wife. Wu Fab Din is called The Daffodil, and his is a Chinese Bunthorne. On his quest of the Yellow Jacket (emblem of his true rank), Wu Hoo Git is accompanied by an aged philosopher, a sort of Chinese Wotan, though less loquacious. He falls into the trap of pleasure and is lured by the maids who sell their love for gold. He crosses high mountains, deep streams, endures snow and cold, meets the thunder god and the great spider, but ultimately he conquers his rival, aided by his mother's spirit looking down from heaven, and by his sweetheart's slipper-his sweetheart, the lovely Plum Blossom.

Now, all this is but a simple, naïve folk tale, played by Saxon actors and actresses dressed up in Chinese robes, yet so quaintly is it presented and so artlessly sincere have the adapters kept it that we believe it all, even when we smile at it, and more than once it touches our hearts.

The curtain rises on a second curtain, or pair of curtains, embroidered with dragons, and between thses curtains comes the Chinese property man, who is supposed to be invisible to the audience. He nonchalantly sucks a cigarette and beats a gong. Props is played by Arthur Shaw, a son of Mary Shaw, and though he does not speak a word during the entire performance, and is supposed to be invisible, his complete indifference to the play and his perfunctory performance of his various duties are irresistible comic. After Props has beaten his gong Chorus comes forth, impersonated by Signor Perugini. Chorus bows, although admitting it is a little below his dignity, thanks the audience for assembling and bids them, if they find anything amusing in the play, to honorably smile. (Yes, he splits his infinitive.) He does not disclose the authorship of the play, and he is abruptly cut off in his urbanities by Props again with his gong.

Now the curtains part, and we see the stage set as a great, high interior of gold, evidently representing the interior of a Chinese theater. At the back, center, is an alcove where the musicians sit. At the back, right and left, are two doors for the entrance ane exit of characters. The Chorus has a little table in front of the b and, where he sits and explains what goes on. Props has a big box and a pile of furniture at one side-all the paraphernalia needed to dress the stage for the various scenes. He has also two ro three assistants, whom he kicks about.

Now the first scene is a room in Wu Sin Yin's palace, so Props puts a table in the center of the stage, a stiff black chair on either side of it, and stands behind one of the chairs with a cushion in his hand, scornfully puffing his cigarette. Chorus tells us this is a room in the palace, and Wu Sin Yin enters, walks down the stage and informs the audience who he honorable is. Then he goes to the chair, Props puts the cushion under him, and he sits. As the other characters enter they, too , tell who they are. We speedily learn of Wu Sin Yin's plot to have his first wife and baby killed, and the scene changes to Chee Moo's garden-a change accomplished merely by removing the chairs and table. Chee Moo enters with a piece of wood dressed in a baby dress. The audience, of course, laughs at this, as it has laughed at much before. But she has not spoken three words to this stick of wood before the audience is listening attentively, the stick of wood forgotten. After all, it is quite as real as the baby dolls we use to represent infants in arms on our western stage!

When Lee Sin, the farmer, slays Fancy Beauty, the pert maid, instead of Chee Moo, there is another laugh, because he cuts off her head by pulling a red bean bag from under her kimono and holding it aloft. Again, when Chee Moo dies, leaving her babe in a garden, there is a laugh, because Props brings a ladder, leans it against a balcony built over the alcove where the band is stationed, and Chee Moo climbs this to heaven. Yet, as she stands on the balcony looking down upon her sick-of-wood babe once more, you forget to laugh, you imagination catching you up.

Here ends part one of the play, and Chorus comes out, delighted at the applause, and now confesses that he himself wrote the drama and drilled all the players. He honorably bows his thanks.

Part two shows the babe, Wu Hoo Git, grown a fine young man, in the home of the farmer; a handsome youth, full of fire, eager to learn of the world. As he goes forth to learn. Now the false heir to his father's province, the Daffodil, tries to thwart him, and first sends the Purveyor of Hearts, a hunchback, to tempt him with pleasure. Four little maids not exactly from school are offered for his inspection, and he buys one, and together they go out on the River of Love. Here Props gets busy. He builds a boat by means of four chairs and a strip of cloth. Two assistant props stand at the stern with poles and pretend to row. One man in the orchestra rubs sand-paper to simulate the swish of waves, and the two young people recline in the craft and float down the stream. At first a snicker goes up from the audience. But George Relph, who plays Wu Hoo Git, is a good actor. So honest, so poetic is his impersonation of this youth just captured by the snare of love, and so honest and quaint is the writing of the scene, that in a moment, laughter ceases. Another moment, and that is a boat up there in the moonlight. This of course, is not alone the Chinese stage. It is the stage of Shakespeare-the platform stage of many a masterpiece; and once more it demonstrates how much of a convention, a custom merely, is the realistic scenery of today.

Wu Hoo Git is soon disillusioned about his little love-girl, and presently falls truly in love with the maiden Plum Blossom. He falls in love with her in a graveyard, where he is seeking for his mother's tomb. Props makes a graveyard by hanging white cloths, covered with inscriptions, over the backs of chairs, and then standing bored in a corner himself, holding up a bamboo pole to impersonate a weeping willow tree. At the end of this act, of course, Wu Hoo Git learns who he really is, and sets forth to oust the Daffodil.

The Daffodil appears to have been a powerful as well as elegant person. He had command over magic. He is most wonderfully well played by Schuyler Ladd, who smells of flowers held for him by the "invisible" Props with languid grace, and speaks with a diction and clarity rare on our stage. He throws mountains and rivers and snowstorms in his enemy's path. Props makes the mountain out of two tables and four chairs, and Wu Hoo Git and the old philosopher who accompanies him struggle up. Props builds the great river by putting a plank bridge across two chairs. Props makes the snowstorm by scattering a few bits of torn paper. Now, this all sounds like one of Everett Shinn's burlesques, but the smile at Props at once gives way when the actors come on, because they are playing sincerely a sincere story, which captures you out of the ages and the alien lands. As an illustration of the imaginative touches in which this tale abounds we may cite the death of the old philosopher, in the snowstorm. He lies down to die, and Props kicks a red cushion under his head. Then the actor gets up leaving his cloak behind, and mounts the ladder to heaven. Wu Hoo Git comes and lifts the cloak on the ground, speaking to the dead "form" beneath it. That simple little piece of primitive stage business has all the stab of spiritual allegory. Of course Wu Hoo Git conquers the Daffodil at last, and banishes him to a garden there to smell lovely odors forever, and marries his sweetheart, Plum Blossom, as the Yellow Jacket is put about his honorable shoulders.

A word must be said for the music which almost incessantly accompanies this play. William Furst wrote it. It is played on instruments approximating the Chinese, and is made up of Chinese rhythms, square-toed and monotonous. Yet this music never obtrudes, it cleverly avoids monotony, and it consistently heightens the scenes where it is employed. It is another feature of this rich and rare entertainment where perfect taste and artistic discretion and restraint have been successfully employed.

"The Yellow Jacket" is a triumph for everybody concerned-including the Chinese authors of the originals!