A.D.C.
Actor Prejudices
In the sixties, and indeed for long after, those that acted in plays were darkly suspected of a raffishness properly disapproved of in polite society. Traces were still to be found of the thoroughgoing old-time prejudice that classed actors with rogues and vagabonds, and linked play-acting with prize-fighting, bull-baiting and other rascally diversions of the rake-hells and riff-raff of the period. This unctuously rectitudinous feeling of doubt as to the respectability of acting lingered with curious persistence in Hongkong. It is illustrated with delightfully unconscious humour in the following newspaper criticism of one of the best known amateurs of the time.
'He is one of the very few amateur actors that have been brought up and educated as gentlemen. How far he has availed himself of this peculiar advantage it is not our purpose to enquire, but certainly few men that have appeared on our local stage have enjoyed, or indeed deserved more applause.' I suppose this ingenuous comment was a very well meant appraisal, though nowadays I fear it would be colloquially referred to as a 'raspberry'. Only a few years previously Mr. Andrew Gotch M.P. delivered himself in the House of Commons of this bright utterance:
'The theatre only brings together a set of unfortunate outcasts who have no other means of existence.'
All Female Cast
It is therefore perhaps not surprising that for more than thirty years after the A.D.C. was founded all the actors adopted stage names. The reason recorded is that the taipans of the big hongs objected to the names of young gentlemen employed in their merchant houses appearing on theatre programmes! There was, however, no objection to the names of the same young gentlemen appearing as owners on racing programmes. Nowadays the position is reversed, nobody adopts a nom de théâtre, but most of our racing ponies are owned by one or other of the prolific family of Mr. I.
Another indication of Hongkong mid-Victorian views on the theatre is that it was considered unmaidenly and immodest for ladies to appear on the stage. Until 1880 all female parts were played by men. It is interesting in this connection to note that the last production of the A.D.C. before the demolition of the City Hall Theatre was "Nine Till Six", an all female cast! The satisfactory surplus on that highly successful production might well, I think, have been expended on a bust in appropriate brass of the first lady to take a part in Hongkong Amateur Theatricals. It will be interesting to trace this maker of local history.
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Continuation
A.D.C.
Actor Prejudices
In the sixties, and indeed for long after, those that acted in plays were darkly suspected of a raffish- ness properly disapproved of in polite society. Traces were still to be found of the thoroughgoing old-time prejudice that classed actors with rogues and vagabonds, and linked play-acting with prize-fighting, bull-baiting and other rascally diversions of the rake-hells and riff- raff of the period. This unctuously rectitudinous feel- ing of doubt as to the respectability of acting lingered with curious persistence in Hongkong. It is illustrated with delightfully unconscious humour in the following newspaper criticism of one of the best known amateurs of the time.
'He is one of the very few amateur actors that have been brought up and educated as gentlemen. How far he has availed himself of this peculiar advantage it is not our purpose to enquire, but certainly few men that have appeared on our local stage have enjoyed, or indeed de- served more applause. I suppose this ingenuous comment was a very well meant appraisal, though nowadays I fear it would be colloquially referred to as a 'raspberry1. Only a few years previously Mr. Andrew Gotch M P. de- livered himself in the House of Commons of this bright utterance:
The theatre only brings together a set of un- fortunate outcasts who have no other means of existence.'
All Female Cast
It is therefore perhaps not surprising that for more than thirty years after the A.D.C. was founded all the actors adopted stage names. The reason recorded is that the taipans of the big hongs objected to the names of young gentlemen employed in their merchant houses appearing on theatre programmes! There was, however, no objection to the names of the same young gentlemen appearing as owners on racing programmes. Nowadays the position is reversed, no body adopts a nom de theatre, but most of our racing ponies are owned by one or other of the prolific family of Mr. I.
Another indication of Hongkong mid-Victorian views on the theatre is that it was considered unmaidenly and immodest for ladies to appear on the stage. Until 1880 all femal parts were played by men. It is interesting in this connection to note that the last production of the A.D.C. before the demolition of the City Hall Theatre was "Nine Till Six" an all female cast! The satisfactory surplus on that highly successful production might well, I think have been expended on a bust in appropriate brass of the first lady to take a part in Hongkong Amateur Theatricals. It will be interesting to trace this maker of local history.
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10
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