India impressions, with some notes of Ceylon during a winter tour, 1906-7 [microform] . reached an openground outside the town ; it was rather dark, butwe saw a row of lights in front of us, and heard thesound of tom-toms. The old horse jibbed andwould not go further, so we left the carriage, andMoonsawmy conducted us to some temporarystructures of matting and bamboo, where ticketswere sold. One rupee secured a chair in the frontrow. The theatre was a large, tent-like structure,with plastered piers supporting a roof of floor was of earth, the common ground, in fact,upon which the b
India impressions, with some notes of Ceylon during a winter tour, 1906-7 [microform] . reached an openground outside the town ; it was rather dark, butwe saw a row of lights in front of us, and heard thesound of tom-toms. The old horse jibbed andwould not go further, so we left the carriage, andMoonsawmy conducted us to some temporarystructures of matting and bamboo, where ticketswere sold. One rupee secured a chair in the frontrow. The theatre was a large, tent-like structure,with plastered piers supporting a roof of floor was of earth, the common ground, in fact,upon which the back rows squatted. The stagewas also of earth, raised about three or four feet,the front being painted in broad red and whitevertical stripes. The footlights were ordinary oillamps, clustered in groups. The audience wasentirely native (besides ourselves, who were theonly Europeans present). Some sat close up MADRAS AND THE SOUTH 265 alongside the stage on raised steps of earth. Darkdraperies hung at the sides of the proscenium, andthere was a coarsely-painted drop scene, of the kind. ,J)) -ih TANJORE — NATIVE THEATRE—HOUSE FULL. PERFORMANCE FROM9 TILL 2 —BUT WE DIDNT STOP TO SEE IT THROUGH familiar in third-rate provincial theatres and music-halls at home. The first scene apparently represented a suburbanstreet in the European quarter of an Indian town ;at least there was a square towered church in it,ugly enough, although some high-pitched gables 266 INDIA IMPRESSIONS rather suggested suburban England. A roadin very acute perspective ran through thecentre of the scene, which might, after all,have been bought from some European travellingtheatre. The curtain raiser was of a sort of operatic,conventional courtship motive, and consisted of amusical dialogue between a young lady and gentle-man of uncertain country, costume, and girl was badly dressed in a white muslinfrock, with a little red silk waistband, and atinsel coronet or tiara on her head. She ke
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