[
    {
        "id": 209596,
        "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-1982",
        "page_number": 253,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "231\n\nmusic, a dazzling transformation scene, and a rollicking harlequinade.\" It enlisted a great many people for the leads, chorus and orchestra.\n\nNot everyone in Hong Kong was happy about pantomimes. In 1891 in the \"Beauty and the Beast\" \"the indiscreet censure lately passed by the Bishop upon the Pantomime was noticed in a verse or so--and a comical but somewhat misplaced representative of his Lordship appeared in the Harlequinade\".\n\nThe A.D.C. tried its hand at light opera in 1894 with the performance of Gilbert and Clay's \"Princess Toto\". It was described, however, as \"vapid and unattractive\". The Choral Society had for some years been presenting light operas and had already given \"Iolanthe\" and \"The Gondoliers\". In subsequent years the A.D.C. did \"Trial by Jury\", \"Yeomen of the Guard\", \"His Excellency\", and \"The Gondoliers\".\n\nDuring this same period, along with the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, other currently popular musical plays were staged.\n\nTHE GENIUS OF MR. SINCLAIR\n\nWith more frequent visits of professional companies, the A.D.C. increasingly found it difficult to sustain interest and attendance. This resulted in financial losses and threatened the future of the Amateurs. A new era arrived when Mr. Walter Sinclair assumed direction of A.D.C. productions in 1912.\n\nSinclair was imaginative and venturesome and mounted productions that were different from those presented by the travelling companies. The A.D.C. took on new life.\n\nAmong Sinclair's innovations was his introduction to Hong Kong of the playwright Lord Dunsany. In 1921 he presented an evening's programme of four Dunsany plays. One of these was \"The Compromise of the King of the Golden Isle\". It was the play's world premiere. The setting was Chinese. During the interval preceding it, to set the mood, a group of Chinese amateur musicians played Chinese music. It was particularly noted that the music \"was not unpleasing, for people who have heard only the cymbals and tom-toms may find music in the sweetness of some of the native banjos and fiddles\".",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209597,
        "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-1982",
        "page_number": 254,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "232\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nThe opportunity to give a world premiere came about in this fashion. Early in the year Mr. Sinclair directed students at the University of Hong Kong in two Dunsany plays. They did not attract much public attention, but Sinclair sent photographs of the production along with some newspaper notices to Lord Dunsany. As a result, he wrote a play about the Gold Isles and sent the manuscript to Mr. Sinclair with the intention that it also should be performed by the students. Unfortunately, they were not able to do so, so Sinclair, as one of the popular A.D.C. directors, decided to have a Dunsany evening and include \"The Compromise of the King of the Golden Isles\". It was full of colour, filled with pomp and ceremony. It is interesting to note that the late Noel Croucher served as a bodyguard in one of the crowd scenes and that Sinclair had consulted Sir Robert Kotewall and Mr. Fung Yuk-shum to get authenticity for the Chinese costumes and other details.\n\nIn 1926 the A.D.C. performed Dunsany's most successful play \"If.\" His plays have been described as \"decorative drama\". Many of them had settings in the Near and Far East.\n\nW. Sinclair was both an innovator and a man of cosmopolitan tastes. During the years he produced plays for the A.D.C., the repertoire ranged from Shakespeare to the future and from fantasy to realism.\n\nThe Hong Kong Mummers presented \"Twelfth Night\" in 1913. It was directed by Mr. Siegler, a name assumed by Mr. Sinclair for some of his early productions in Hong Kong. He later abandoned this pseudonym. \"Twelfth Night\" was billed as the first amateur production of Shakespeare in the Far East. This claim was corrected by the Tokyo A.D.C., which had presented \"As You Like It\" in 1906, \"Midsummer Night's Dream\" in 1911, and \"The Merchant of Venice\" in 1912. The Hong Kong A.D.C. had assisted Miss Janet Waldorf and her small company of professionals in \"As You Like It\" in 1899. It was scheduled for an outdoor performance on the Parade Ground, but this was rained out and it was held in the Theatre Royal. Weather did permit a second performance on the Parade Ground. In 1922, the A.D.C. under Sinclair produced \"The Tempest\".\n\n\"The Blue Bird\" by Maeterlinck was given in 1914. It was",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209615,
        "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-1982",
        "page_number": 272,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "250\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\n1921/22\n\n-\n\nno production.\n\n1922/23\n\n1923/24\n\n12, 13, 18, 21 Oct. 1922 - \"I'll Leave it to You\" (N. Coward, 1920)\n\n26, 27, 28, 30 Dec. 1922, 1, 2 Jan. 1923 - \"The Tempest\" (Shakespeare)\n\n8, 10, 12, 15 Dec. 1923 \"R.U.R.\" (Rossum's Universal Robots) (Karel Capek, transl. by P. P. Silver, adapted by N. Playfair, 1922)\n\n1924/25\n\n25, 26, 27, 28 Feb. 1925 - \"French Leave\" (Reginald Berkely) farcial comedy\n\n13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22 Jan. 1925 - \"St. Joan\" (G. B. Shaw, 1923)\n\n1925/26\n\n2, 3, 4, 5 Dec. 1925 - \"A Little Bit of Fluff\" farce\n\n2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Mar. 1926 — “If” (Lord Dunsany, 1921)\n\n1926/27\n\n13, 15, 17, 18, 19 Nov. 1926 Dramatic Medley \"A Matter of Time\" (Ronald Jeans)\n\n\"The First and the Last\" (John Galsworthy, 1921)\n\n\"The Burglar and the Girl\" (Mathew Boulton, 1913)\n\n\"The Man in the Bowler Hat” (A. A. Milne, 1925)\n\n19, 22 Mar. 1927 \"The Last of Mrs. Cheyney\" - Frederick Lonsdale, 1925)\n\n1927/28\n\n19, 21, 22, 23 Nov. 1927 - \"Bulldog Drummond\" (H. C. McNeile and Gerald du Maurier, 1921)\n\n1928/29\n\n16, 20, 24 Nov. 1928 \"The Sport of Kings\" (Ian Hay, 1924) performed at Star Theatre, Kowloon.\n\n19, 21, 22, 23, 26 Feb. 1929 - \"On Approval\" (Frederick Lonsdale, 1926)\n\n1929/30\n\n22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 Mar. 1930 - \"And So to Bed\"\n\n1930/31\n\n12 Nov. 1930 — performance at Helena May Institute \"Snobs\"\n\n\"Half an Hour\"\n\n15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 Nov. 1930 \"The Middle Watch\" a romance of the Royal Navy (Stephen King-Hall and Ian Hay, 1929)\n\n7, 10, 11, 13, 14 Mar. 1931 - \"Art and Mrs. Bottle\" (Benn W. Levy, 1929)\n\n\"Dear Brutus\" (James Barrie, 1917) last A.D.C. performance at the Theatre Royal, City Hall.\n\n14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 Nov. 1931\n\n1931/32\n\n―",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
        "rank": 0
    }
]