Among the Mohammedans, too, woman is ruled
out and is kept apart; and so strong is custom it even affected the
Christian church in Oriental lands in the early days. You see a trace
of it still in the East in church-arrangements.
A Chinese play takes a number of weeks or even months in which to
complete it. It may be founded on domestic life or on some historic
scene. Sometimes the history of a province of the Chinese Empire is
the theme. The plays are mostly comedy. There are no grand tragedies
like those of the old Greek poets. The Chinese have had no such
writers as Sophocles or Euripides, no such creators of plays as
Shakespeare, and they have no such actors as a Garrick or an Irving.
We were invited to seats on the stage--which had no curtains,
everything being done openly. In order to reach the stage the guide
conducted us down the passageway or aisle through the midst of the
audience. Then we ascended a platform at the end of the stage and went
behind it into a long room where the actors were putting on costumes
of a fantastic shape and painting their faces with bright coloured
pigments.
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