[ { "id": 211774, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "164\n\non the stage. At last Shanghai could boast a drama society that was footed on a regular basis, could give its fiftieth performance on April 18, 1876 (T.W. Robertson's School), its hundredth on March 22, 1893 (a local version of Lloyd Clarence's A Tale of Tell under the title The Tale of Tell Retold). The 150th performance went off in 1908 with James Matthew Barrie's The Admirable Crichton, and altogether the A.D.C. existed well into the 1930s.25\n\n27\n\n24\n\nIn the years preceding the A.D.C., theatrical seasons, and with it the companies, were organised annually, depending, it seems, on the interest shown by society and the availability of actors and managers. The very first amateur performances took place during the season 1849-1850,26 but no record has been left of them. In the following years more than once reference was made to a \"New Corps\" formed for the season, or that it had been \"but a few weeks since the present company had been embodied\".28 Under these circumstances it was by no means certain that the Shanghai public would be treated each winter to an evening of uncomplicated amusement. In its issue of November 27, 1852, the Herald stated that “if 'common report' be true we fear that the 'Dramatic Corps' (...) will be unable to continue their performance\" due to the \"absence from Shanghai of the 'Head and Front' of the original body, together with the retirement of some of its members\". This brought forward an outcry by a foreign lady (?) who donned herself with the name \"Phoebe Silverveil\": \"No theatricals? Dear Me! Mr. Editor, what are the ladies to do without them? The performances were so good (...) and we all enjoyed them so much!''; and then, quoting liberally the pieces of the past season (see Calendar), she ended: \"I have just put dear baby down for a minute to write these few lines as a gentle hint to the Corps; hoping that if the members are not quite Used Up, they will give us another merry Rendezvous at the Theatre and there is surely not such a Dragon amongst them as to say NO!\"29 As if this appeal were not enough, the editor added as an afterthought that this letter \"can hardly fail to have the effect of rousing the dormant energies of the heroes of the 'sock and buskin' to renewed exertions, to deserve the applause of their fair admirers. We doubt not they will take the hint\". In this way aspiring amateurs were cajoled into the formation of a new company which started its operations in January 1853 with Beckett's The Turned Head and Boucicault's Used Up. Some five years later, in January 1858, the Herald regretted that the Amateur Theatrical performances, so successful last year, have not as yet been reorganised during the present season and we think we speak with the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211783, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "173\n\nat Shanghai\" occurred on Friday September 19 1856\" and by a remarkable coincidence it also marked the introduction of a brand new instrument to the China Coast music lover, viz the Saxophone. This, though, was not how it was announced. The artist, Ali Ben Sou Alle, who had studied at the Paris Conservatoire and made a career in France and England as a clarinetist, was of Turkish descent and had seen fit to rename the instrument invented by Adolphe Sax in 1840 into something recalling his fatherland: the Turkophone. He had made a tour through Asia and in Hong Kong his success had not been unequivocal.\" In Shanghai, reception was somewhat mixed (cf Calendar: 19.9.1856). Apart from the \"Turkophone” he handled the \"Turkophonini” (which may have been the soprano saxophone), the clarinet, and an instrument \"which we trust our Scottish friends will pardon us for pronouncing something worse than the bagpipe”. \n\nAs details of the activities of other artists that visited Shanghai will be found in the Calendar of Performances it seems hardly necessary here to elaborate on them. But attention should be drawn to the first lady singer\" who engrossed the public there in July 1863: Miss Amelia Bailey. On a second trip some months later, in October and November, she drew \"crowded houses small wonder in a place with so many soldiers and bachelors.\n\nIV. The Actors\n\n>72\n\nJ\n\nFor those that did not belong to the taipan class, that is, those not partners in a firm but lower mercantile assistants, the freedom to engage in whatever activities they wanted in their spare time was limited. Employees out on their first term called griffins were usually not allowed to marry because the firm did not feel like paying for home leave for an entire family. Another restriction put in their way was that commonly there was a clause in their contract which ran: \"All horse and pony racing, or riding in races, and all acting in public theatricals is forbidden without the consent of the resident partner”.73\n\nHere the reasons were partly financial as the employers feared that the youngsters might be carried away with the rehearsals, with disadvantageous consequences for the job they were supposed to do; and partly social, in that the senior merchants were perhaps afraid that the juniors would prove to be more popular on the stage than they themselves. Of those that were permitted and willing to don sock and buskin it is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211784, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "174\n\nunfortunate that practically always only their stage names are known, making it impossible for us to identify any well known local citizens who were maybe also active in the municipal administration or social clubs. Not all pseudonyms were as transparent as Mr. Beverley Newcome, Mr. Circular Roller and Mr. Pickwick, nor so ludicrous as **Mr. Caput as Head Manager, Mr. Work-em-hard as stagemaker and Mr. Llanfair P.G. as the stagesweeper,” but we can never be sure about the real identity of most actors. Still, in a few cases the true names of participants were given (see: Calendar, 13.2.1863, 26.3.1863). With the managers of the companies things stood no better: the names have come to us of a Mr. Doldrum, Horatio Buskin and Peter Proteus, but they are mentioned here merely for curiosity's sake. In some instances the performers were nothing loath to adopt the names of well known contemporaries. Thus the orchestra at a theatrical night was reputedly conducted by the “Veteran Melodist Sir George Smart,” who indeed was a conductor, organist and composer (1776-1867), certainly not in Shanghai but in Britain, where he had conducted, among other performances, the first performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in 1826. Another example was the appearance of \"our old friend Mr Bravo Rouse\". Rouse, always nicknamed Bravo Rouse, had been the originator of the Grecian Saloon in 1838, the precursor of the music hall.77\n\n**76\n\nOne feature that should be highlighted is the absence of ladies on the stage until 1876. On April 18 of that year Shanghailanders witnessed their first amateur actress in T.W. Robertson's School.” Before that, however, there may have been attempts to break the male monopoly in the theatre, to judge from a short remark in the local satirical magazine **Puck, or the Shanghai Charivari”** in 1873: “We hear that the actresses of the Dramatic Club bitterly resent the movement that has lately been made by the ladies of Shanghai in the direction of amateur theatricals as they consider their rights infringed. We however think differently; the presence of these fair debutantes if of more frequent occurrence [my emphasis — JH] would tend to inspire the male actors, and while we should certainly have fewer sticks on the stage, we might have more matches”. Not that Shanghai in this respect lagged behind the amateur dramatic societies in other Far Eastern ports: Yokohama introduced women in 1878, Hong Kong in 1879 and Singapore in 1884.82\n\n20\n\nAs far as Shanghai is concerned the reason for the lack of women on the stage is not difficult to find. Their general paucity in the Settlement", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211804, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 219, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "194\n\n6.5.1852 (Thur)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"Attic Story\" (1842)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nR.B. PEAKS: \"The Haunted Inn\" (1828)\n\nT: Farce (2 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Music, i.a. selections from Mozart's “Le Nozze di Figaro\" and other operas. Epilogue.\n\nTh: New Theatre Royal (A)\n\nN: Last performance of the season\n\nR: Again there was a new drop scene. \"A View near Palermo, a very pleasing view of an Italian villa with the bay and hills in the background\". The pieces were \"well performed and excited much merriment, especially the mistakes of the Attic Story\" (NCH 8.5.1852).\n\n27.1.1853 (Thur)\n\nD. BOUCICAULT & C. MATHEWS: \"Used Up\" (1846)\n\nT: Comedietta (2 acts)\n\nG.A.A. BECKETT: \"The Turned Head\" (1834)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nTh: Imperial Theatre (B)\n\nN: First performance of the season\n\nR: After not a little uncertainty about the state of affairs respecting the theatre, finally the management for the new season was laid in the hands of Horatio BUSKIN (a compound pseudonym: Horatio, from Hamlet; Buskin, the boot worn by Greek actors) who succeeded \"Doldrum\".\n\nFor a \"very good attendance graced by many of the beau sexe\" the evening \"came off with great éclat\" (NCH 22, 29.1.1853).\n\n23.3.1853 (Wedn)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"Betsey Baker\" (1851)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nW. BROUGH: \"Apartments\" (1851)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Prologue; comic songs\n\nTh: Imperial Theatre (B)\n\nR: In the presence of the British Superintendent of Trade and Governor of Hong Kong, Sir George Bonham, Betsey Baker turned out to be \"a most decided and palpable hit, received throughout with shouts of laughter and applause\". Bonham was in Shanghai on his way to Nanking which had been taken by the Taipings on March 19. The Rebellion had a profound effect on the foreign community and although the Taipings enjoyed for some time a lot of sympathy, on this occasion they were satirised in a **most original and witty Prologue**: \"The Manager appeared before the curtain, in a state of intense excitement, informing the audience of mutiny in the corps! Dreadful consequences!! No performance!!! What could be done!? Then arose such a \"Row and Bobbery\" [Bobbery: an Anglo-Indian word meaning 'noise, disturbance' - JH] led by those who were in the secret and poor Horatio BUSKIN could scarcely be heard amidst the crash of broken glass and was almost unable to face the shower of oranges aimed at his devoted head. An amiable conspirator elevating himself on a bench expressed most loudly and eloquently his indignation at this state of affairs; however, after a parley with the Manager, he proposed a compromise, and the curtain was drawn up exposing the corps evidently in a state of 'Rebellion'. Fortunately they would listen to reason and the 'refractory members' agreed to 'go on' for this occasion, and the Manager retired with...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211805, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 220, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "195\n\nhis alarm allayed amidst the warmest applause from the audience for his clever and successful \"sell\". In addition the editor wrote that this Prologue afforded H. E. more valuable hints how to treat the Rebellion than all the suggestions that have been submitted to him since his arrival. Apparently Bonham was \"so much delighted that we are not without hopes a report on the performances may form the subject of his first despatch from Shanghae”. So much for modesty. As regards the performances themselves, the writer had it in confidence from a tall whiskered male who occupied a front seat disguised in a dress coat, that although Hong Kong theatre is now more conveniently lit up in the Victoria Theatre in acting Shanghae would not suffer by comparison\". \"That treaty port chauvinism was not lacking even at that early stage was made clear when the visitor insisted that our Head Actor has been brought from Hong Kong”. Despite his earlier lukewarm praise he must have made some sour remarks too, for the editor wrote that \"except as to the heroine, his critical skill was evidently at fault in discriminating the excellences of the other performers in Betsey Baker; and all he could be got to say regarding Apartments was something about Mr. and Mrs. Keeley having many worse imitators” (Robert Keeley, 1793-1869; and Mrs. Keeley (Mary Ann Coward), 1806-1899: famous British actors). (NCH 26.3.1853).\n\n5.5.1853 (Thur)\n\nG.A.A. BECKETT: \"Siamese Twins\" (1834)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nR. BUTLER: \"The Irish Tutor\" (1822)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Music by the band of the Susquehanna\n\nTh: Imperial Theatre (B)\n\nN: Final performance of the season\n\nR: The close of the season by the amateurs who called themselves the \"Lily Troupe\" for a \"bumper house\"; with some “admirable music by the Band of Susquehanna\" — a steamer belonging to the U.S. Japan Squadron. (NCH 7.5.1853).\n\n8.3.1854 (Wedn)\n\nJ.M. MADDOX: “A Fast Train! High Pressure!! Express!!!\" (1853)\n\nT: Farce\n\nW.B. BERNARD: “A Practical Man\" (1849)\n\nT: Farce\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nP: Music\n\nTh: Tac Ming Theatre (C)\n\nR: At the start of the evening a, for part of the audience at least, unexpected treat was in store: “On the rising of the curtain a ludicrous incident quite upset our friend BUSKIN. He was set down to enact \"Colonel Jack Delaware\" (in A Fast Train — JH) but a storm met him as soon as he appeared on the stage and he was fairly hissed off when a stranger leapt over the footlights and announced his intention of supporting the character. The curtain dropped and after a short delay the volunteer Yankee came forward, dressed in the most extravagant fashion and took up the part with great spirit\". Was the leading actor-manager really taken by surprise? This could hardly be, and it must be assumed that it was, like the \"rebellion\" before, a set up. At any rate the \"interloping Yankee was enrolled in Buskin's company. The musical department was sustained by \"Messrs Thalberg and Koenig with their usual talent and success\". Both these noms de théâtre were after well known musicians: Sigismund Thalberg (1812-1871), a Swiss pianist and composer; and Friedrich Koenig, a German violinist. (NCH 11.3.1854).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211806, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 221, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "196\n\n22.3.1854 (Wedn)\n\nJ.V. BRIDGEMAN: \"I've Eaten My Friend!\" (1851)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"A Most Unwarrantable Intrusion\" (1849)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"The Two Bonny Castles\" (1851)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Music\n\nTh: Tac Ming Theatre (C)\n\nR: Was the new member perhaps \"Mr Mercury WARREN\" who scored such a great success in I've Eaten My Friend! as Hezekiah Jellytop? \"The refined sensibility of the character was portrayed with a power and intensity which mark Mr. Warren as one of the true sons of Thespis. How shall we describe the horror when the internal evidence of a pie revealed a clue to the whereabouts of his departed friend\".\n\nIn the second piece, An Unwarrantable Intrusion \"the part of Ashplant was performed by a gentleman whose via comica and power of communication were unmistakable. He completely embodied the character and infused life and vigour into his conception of it**.\n\nUntil now, even the stage names of the actors had scarcely been mentioned in the reviews, but tonight we learn that in The Two Bonny Castles Messrs Bravo ROUSE, Mercury WARREN, and Horatio BUSKIN excelled as well as the ladies who acted with great spirit and sustained the dignity and elegance of the sex with most admirable effect\" (Bravo ROUSE was a borrowed alias).\n\n+\n\nAmong the musicians was again \"Herr KOENIG\" who \"brilliantly executed\" on, presumably, the violin. (NCH 25.3.1854).\n\n15.5.1854 (Mon)\n\nC.W.S. BROOKS: \"Anything for a Change\" (1848)\n\nT: Comedietta (1 act)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"Box and Cox\" (1847)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: \"A Grand Ethiopian Entertainment\" with the \"Virginian Minstrels\"\n\nTh: Tac Ming Theatre (C)\n\nN: These performances, the last of the season, had originally been announced for April 5; on that date would also have been played J.T.G. Rodwell's farce A Race for Dinner. The evening was postponed, however, because of the Battle of Muddy Flat on April 4, 1854.\n\nR: Some of the local celebrities definitely could not go wrong, witness the following remark in the Herald: \"As we dropped in for half an hour we cannot speak of the concluding (Box and Cox) but, as our favourite Mr. VERDENT and the clever Mr. WARREN enacted parts in it, we have no doubt it must have told on the audience\". Earlier that night Mr. Bravo ROUSE and Mr. WARREN had starred in Anything for a Change (probably as Swoppington and Honeyball).\n\n19.5.1855 (Sat)\n\nA \"Soirée Musicale Dansante\" by officers of the U.S.S. \"Powhatan\" with an \"Ethiopian Concert by the Minstrels of the Powhatan\" and a burlesque on Bulwer-Lytton's The Lady of Lyons. H.J. Byron wrote a burlesque with the same title, but according to HED, the first performance took place on February 1, 1858.\n\nR: In the Survey, it was pointed out that the officers of naval vessels sometimes entertained the local foreign residents. The first of these occasions occurred on board the Powhatan, an American warship that took part in the Japan expedition, on the eve of her departure.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211808, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 223, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "198\n\nT: Farce (1 act) C: Amateurs\n\nF: Music\n\nTh: D\n\nR: This was the last theatrical entertainment organised by Horatio BUSKIN and he could look back on a successful \"career\" as manager. Only the music had flagged of late (tonight \"a buzz in a box near the proscenium represented the music — we were ten feet away from it and it was therefore lost upon us\" the days of \"Sir George Smart and Messrs Thalberg\" and \"Koenig\" were over).\n\n—\n\nTo make up for these shortcomings \"Mr. CLAY as Honeybun (in the Infanticidal Farce) was, as he always is, first rate\". In Slasher and Crasher the public witnessed the debut of \"Miss Polly DEXTER as Rosa, affording hope of a new evening star of the first magnitude\" (NCH 23.2.1856).\n\n14.8.1856 (Thur)\n\nN.N.: The Nigger Doctor and his Patient Patient or the First Lesson in Surgery\n\nT: Negro farce\n\nC: Travelling American Company (Messrs Baker, Woodward and Montgomery) Th: Old Theatre (C)\n\nN: The whole evening was announced as a \"Grand Ethiopian Musical Soirée\"\n\nR: An advertisement only was published in the NCH of August 9. In it the above mentioned gentlemen (formerly of the New York Serenaders) praised their performances as having been \"the theme of universal admiration during the past four years throughout the East Indies as well as the Australian Colonies\". In addition to the farce, the programme consisted of \"Negro songs, interspersed with willy saying and doings peculiar to the African race in America\".\n\n19.9.1856 (Fri)\n\nConcert by Ali Ben Sou Alle and some local amateurs.\n\nInstruments: Turkophone, \"Turkophonini\", clarinet, piano.\n\nProgramme:\n\nG. ROSSINI: Two overtures. V. BELLINI: Selections from \"La Sonnambula\". F. MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY: \"The Fairest Flower\" (song). Some German songs, The \"Shanghai Redowa Walse\", Medley of English, Scottish and Irish airs. Th: N.N. (C)\n\nR: Tonight was the occasion of the first real concert in the Settlement's history. It was given by Mr. ALI BEN SOU ALLE, a Turk who, after a study at the Conservatoire de Paris, had been appointed Directeur de Musique de Marine in Senegal (which had been French since 1871) in 1844. In 1847 he returned to Paris to enter the orchestra of the Opéra Comique, but the following year he went to London where he found employment in the orchestra of Her Majesty's Theatre at the Haymarket. He learned to play some instruments that had been invented by Adolphe Sax, the Belgian musician (1814-1894) and thereafter he made an extensive tour to Australia, Java, Singapore, Manila and China (CM 16, 10, 1856). In Hong Kong and even Canton he had appeared in August and October 1856 (CM 7.8. 14.8. 21.8. 16.10.1856). In between he gave two recitals in the Yangtze port. In the Survey it has already been stated that the soloist entertained the public with performances on several instruments that had been rechristened Turkophone and Turkophonini: in reality they were the Saxophone and (probably) the soprano saxophone. Well may we ask how these instruments, which were only of recent origin (1840s), were received by an audience completely unused to their sound. The artist interpreted a selection from Bellini's \"La Sonnambula\" on the \"Turkophone\" and the critic wrote that \"the compass of the instrument is very great but we confess to some disappointment as regards its quality of tone, and correctness of tone also, in some few notes, and altogether we think it an imperfect instrument", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 } ]