We sailed from Perth, on the Minderoo, to Singapore, stopping on the way at Surabaya (Bill’s birthplace) and Batavia where we docked long enough for a visit. Pop took us all to the Hotel des Indes for “tiffin” lunch and we had “Rice Tefal,” a dish of thirty different food served by thirty boys all moving around the table. We were so delighted with the reactions of Fina and Myrie. Their eyes were almost falling out of their heads!
We drove back to the ship through rice and tapioca fields and everything was so beautifully green.
We arrived May 18th at Singapore and it was the busiest harbour we had ever seen. There were hundreds of ships from all over the world as well as barges and small boats. And then the natives came alongside the ship in their canoes, calling for money which they would dive for, when you tossed it over the side. Boys as well as old men. One old fellow had a cigar in his mouth and would pull it inside his mouth while he dived!
Singapore was very Cosmopolitan and the majority of the Chinese, Maylays and Indians wore their native dress. The Maylays cooked in the streets and others would squat down around them to eat. There were trolley buses which only the natives could ride, so we all rode rickshaws. We stayed at the Raffles Hotel.
We opened May 21st and did seventeen shows in one week. Business was very good but we closed on the 30th to go onto China, sailing on the [SS] Kashima Maru. We did not have an advance agent at this time so Dante went ahead to plan the publicity. We saw what seemed to be thousands of flying fish during this voyage. We stopped at Hong Kong before arriving in Shanghai.
We stayed at a very modern apartment building, China United Apartments on Bubbling Well Road on the twelfth floor and soon learned why it is called the city that never sleeps. All night long we could hear the Chinese playing Mah-jongg, the sing-song of their voices and the clicking of the tiles.
Our three months stay in Shanghai was during a heat wave, the hottest in forty years. Because of the drought there were processions of people praying in the streets and at night they lit millions of firecrackers to frighten the drought devil away.
Shanghai had more activity than any city we had ever visited. Particularly the night life on the Bund, the waterfront. Being only fifteen I was not allowed the freedom that everyone else enjoyed, especially when it came to the night sights. But Al and Ruth took me for a ride around the Bund one night, in rickshaws.
My most exciting experience was going to an American football game. I had never seen one and every Sunday the U.S. Army and Navy, from the International Settlement, would play football. Just seeing so many Americans was pretty exciting. So many young American men!!
The Chinese people were very friendly and courteous, the only exception being the coolies who pulled the rickshaws. They were very persistent in trying to pick up passengers and then haggling over the fares. And there were the children, begging and all saying the same thing, “No Momma, no Poppa, no chow, I’m bastard.”
We worked at three different theatres while in Shanghai. The one that stands out in my memory is the third one, a Chinese theatre where only Chinese attended, so the audience didn’t understand English. Dante did the whole show without conversation but with a lot of clowning around, more for the benefit of the troupe than the audience.
The stage was a half circle and had a spring floor, intended to be used by acrobats, so as we walked we almost bounced. This was one of the times when Pop made the work seem like fun so the discomforts of the miserable little dressing rooms and unsanitary conditions did not seem so bad. The lavatory – or what we called the “doniker” – was a long open trough at the foot of the stairs, in the basement. Many natives lived down there and the smell of opium sometimes was overpowering.
The rickshaw coolies went on strike and we had to walk to the theatre and home after the show.
Pop went on a shopping spree and bought trunkloads of beautiful embroidered coats with skirts, pants and hats. One of the ornately carved chests he filled with souvenir treasures and had it sent to Dolly. But many of the coats and skirts were kept for the show. They were particularly good for our finale “Fountainia,” or as we called it, “the Water Act.”
It took a lot of fast teamwork to set the stage for that spectacle. The canvas floor covering was lowered from the “flies” where it had to be hoisted after every show to dry out a bit. On the underside it was covered with hoses and metal plates, as I have mentioned before. The people moving about on stage carried very heavy iron tanks strapped to their bodies, with hoses leading to their wigs or down their arms. That’s why the oriental costumes were so perfect as camouflage. Some people wore special shoes that could attach to the metal plates on the canvas. I never think of the Water Act without remembering Lee and his soldering irons, always working on the tanks repairing or creating something new.
“Fountainia” was indeed quite a spectacle and almost always mentioned in the reviews. It took a lot of mopping up afterwards. Magicians today must find it much simpler to create spectacular effects because there are so many materials to work with that Dante never dreamed of.
One afternoon we went to a Chinese theatre to see a play. The “stagehands” reminded us of the “Spirit Cabinet.” They were all dressed in black and were meant to be invisible as they would change the scenery.
To understand the play, you had to know the historical meaning of every mask, every attitude, every movement of the feet or hands.
The actor with the white mask can be identified as a treacherous, but dignified person. A beggar wears a silk coat in a bright colored checkerboard design. Emperors always appear in yellow robes embroidered with coiled dragons, winding up and down. Yellow robes with flying dragons looking downwards show that their wearers are high officials. An actor holds a whip in his left hand to show he is dismounting from his horse, while the whip in the right hand means he is mounting on horseback.
Women and heroes, however, appear in their natural, though painted skin, and only their clothes depict the difference of rank and character. Boys play parts of girls when very young. When training begins, they must learn to walk as though their feet are bound.
The most startling part of the whole afternoon were the hot towels. The audience would bring food to the theatre and the “ushers” would carry baskets of steaming hot towels. When someone wanted one he would just raise his hand and the towel would go flying across the audience! This went on constantly.
One night or more likely the very early hours of the morning, Dante was on his way back to the hotel with a member of our company, an Australian, Ken Hall. They were going down a road where a lot of coolies were digging a long trench. They stopped their rickshaws and walked over to inspect the work that was being done.
They were both dressed in the customary clothing worn by the British and American men, white suits and pith helmets. At that time it was the British, American or French who were always in charge of building or road construction, so the poor coolies never questioned their authority. Taking advantage of this, Dante pretended to be angry and had Ken pacing off measurements, ending by telling the coolies – it was all a mistake – fill the trench in and dig it on the other side of the road! After the coolies had begun to follow their orders and not wanting to get caught, they got back in their rickshaws and went on their way. They had been drinking, which usually caused problems for everyone.