The Young Wife

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 172, 11 October 1927, Page 16

The Young Wife

KUO MIN TANG, THE | CHINESE NATIONALIST | PARTY, STAGES A DOMES- I TIC COMEDY. j AN OLD. OLD STORY Old he was, but a Chinese of quality.. His wife was young, frivolous and a coquette, who attracted youth as youth does and blew contumelious cigarette smoke in the face o:! her. husband. The Kuo Min Tang staged a comedy on this old triangular theme in. the Trades Hall last everting, and however the fun of the evening was locked up in the Chinese tongi jl the language/of comedy is universa. enough to zell Westerners the way the tale was progressing. Young China was there in force, bubbling at the humorous sallies of the silk-robed actors, their grimacing, and the songs with which the farce was interspersed. And punctuating in some incomprehensible style, the gong in the orchestra sounded a few notes based on the theme 'that seemed to be the whole musical accompaniment. There is a screeching note about Chinese stringed instruments that defies description. An orchestra of seven or so, with fiddles, guitars, gongs and clackers, is one wonderful discord ever repeating the same motif, ever progresisng non-committally through a rising inflexion and hsaving the listener washed high and dry on an unfinished, and to Western ears, unsatisfied phrase. Throughout the comedy the fiddlers fiddled almost incessantly, curious loose-haired “long bows” draggingplaintive squeals from mandolin-shaped instruments played on the knee. Everyone present enjoyed the evening immensely, even the young Juan who for his unprincipled wooing was apparently reduced :'.n the last act to a grovelling, leprous beggar.