Cort Theatre: the yellow jacket

              191?
CORT THEATRE Direction JOHN CORT.
Forty-eighth Street, Just East of Broadway.



Barnard Klawans
Manager


Robert Stevenson
Treasurer



Designed and built by Edward B. Corey.

Telephone Bryant 46.

THIS THEATRE, UNDER NORMAL CONDITIONS, WITH EVERY SEAT OCCUPIED, CAN BE EMPTIED IN LESS THAN THREE MINUTES.  LOOK AROUND NOW, CHOOSE THE NEAREST EXIT TO YOUR SEAT, AND IN CASE OF DISTURBANCE OF ANY KIND, TO AVOID THE DANGERS OF PANIC, WALK (DO NOT RUN) TO THAT EXIT.

MATINEES NOVEMBER 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, and SATURDAYS, NOVEMBER 18 AND 25, AND THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, AT 10:30 A. M.


MR. and MRS. COBURN Present
THE YELLOW JACKET
A Play in Three Parts
By George C. Hazelton and Benrimo
Music by William Furst

Cast of Characters
(In the order of their appearance)



Property Man
Mr. Arthur Shaw


Chorus
Mr. Coburn


Wu Sin Yin (Great Sound Language), Governor of the Province,
Mr. Howard Kyle


Due Jung Fah (Fuchsia Flower), second wife of Wu Sin Yin,
Miss Beatrice Wood


Tso (Fancy Beauty), maid to Due Jung Fah, the second wife,
Miss Beatrice Prentice


Tai Fah Min (Great Painted Face), father of Due Jung Fah, the second wife
Mr. Albert Bruning



{Mr. Charles Harper



{Mr. Carlos Petnode


Assistant Property Men
{Mr. William Fish



{Mr. Henry Brandon


Chee Moo (Kind Mother), first wife of Wu Sin Yin
Mrs. Coburn


Lee Sin (The Farmer)
Mr. George Farren


Suey Sin Fah (Lily Flower), wife of Lee Sin and maid of the first wife, Chee Moo
Miss Mabel Wright


Ling Won (Spirit)
Mr. Henry Buckler


Wu Hoo Git (Young Hero of the Wu Family), destined for The Yellow Jacket
Mr. George Gaul


Wu Fah Din (Daffodil)
Mr. Schuyler Ladd


Yin Suey Gong (Purveyor of Hearts)
Mr. Albert Bruning


Mow Dan Fah (Peony)
Miss Mabel Vanet


Yong Soo Kow (Hydrangea)
Miss Winifred Ridgley


See Quoe Fah (Four Season Flower)
Miss Beatrice Wood


Chow Wan (Autumn Cloud)
Miss Beatrice Prentice


Moy Fah Loy (Plum Blossom), daughter of Tai Char Shoong,
Miss Margaret Carroll


See Noi (Nurse in charge of Plum Bossom)
Miss Victory Bateman


Tai Char Shoong (Purveyor of tea to the Emperor),
Mr. Henry Buckler


The Widow Ching
Miss Margaret Calvert


Maid
Miss Winifred Ridgley


Git Hok Gar (Philosopher and Scholar)
Mr. Howard Kyle


Loy Gong (God of Thunder)
Mr. George Farren


Kom Loi (Spider)
Mr. Henry Buckler






CORT THEATRE
The Scene represents the Stage of a Chinese Theatre Modeled After the Old Jackson Street Theatre, San Francisco.


PART I.—The Mother's Parting.
PART II.—The Story of Love.
PART III.—The Conflict.



Produced under the direction of Benrimo.
The management wish to acknowledge the painstaking and friendly interest shown by the Louis IV.  Shop in the collection of the hangings, draperies and embroideries used in the play.

Costumes imported by the Louis IV.  Shop, Soy Kee & Co., and Kwong Sun Chong & Co.

Wigs by William Broich.

Scenery by Edward Sundquist.



EXECUTIVE STAFF FOR MR. AND MRS. COBURN


Henry Neagle
Manager


Frederick Calvin
Acting Manager


A. Gregory
Treasurer


Edward Colebrook
Stage Manager


James Bragg
Master Mechanic


E. W. Viel
Master of Properties


A. E. Nelson
Electrician


Miss Klinge
Mistress of Wardrobe


Miss E. E. Coburn, Business Manager, 1402 Broadway, New York City






THE YELLOW JACKET
The Yellow Jacket presents in English the conventions of the Chinese Theatre, which has changed but little through many hundreds of years.  While the story is original to the authors, it brings together and presents with all possible authenticity, the conventions, customs, action and music in the same way they are presented at Canton, at Pekin, and Nanking, by the Celestials themselves.  You must give free play to your fancy if you would enjoy the happenings of a Chinese play.  Their drama is a rich play-ground for the imagination: for it probably can be said with safety that no stage in the world is so interwoven with and such a slave to delightfully suggestive conventions as that of the Chinese.

With them everything seems to be inverted.  They do one thing and we do quite the opposite.  We feast the eye with scenery and the illusion is produced in proportion to the perfection of that scenery.  They gladden the eye with a suggestive symbolism to awaken the imagination of the auditor who finds delight in contributing his money, that his imagination may be aroused to a state whence he may dream his own story, paint his own picture and compose his own song.

All primitive peoples are guided by the same motives in life, love and laughter.  They weep the same kind of tears for the same reasons.  The balcony scene that Shakespeare gave his fellows at the Globe Theatre was probably not unlike the heaven that surmounts the stage in the Chinese tradition.  It requires a ladder in both instances to reach the goal.

Shakespeare put his scenery in his lines; the Greeks expressed their passions through suggestive painted masks; the Chinese paint the villains hideosuly so that we may know them; the modern villain is no villain without a black mustache.  We put a horse on the stage and tell the audience it is a horse.  The Chinese are far more delicate.  The hourse is imaginary, but the mounting and dismounting are real.  We paint a snow-capped mountain and build a scaffolding invisible, upon which the player mounts the ragged cliff.  The propertyman of the Chinese Theatre with two chairs and a table gives us a more imposing mountain, and we believe it too, for he leads us into fairy's realms.

Our play producers build rare gondolas in which Jessica and her love steal away on a moon-lit night.  The Chinese take four chairs,
 two bamboo poles, and with the dexterity of a Chinese band give us a river of silvery love on which we can see the flower-boat pass among the lotus flowers.

Their art of suggestion is richer than ours, if we will let our imaginations drift with them, into the fancy-play which they devise for our enchantment.  They lend themselves so completely to the picture that they regard the property-man and his assistants who produce snow-storms, mountain peaks, heaven, with a Juliette balcony, as quite invisible.  Their minds float with the story, in exotic joy.  This property-man does not belong to our conventions and, therefore, at times he is far too visible.  Let him not delude you, however, but smile inwardly, and find in his simple devices the real, for to him they are real.

Approach the play passively, and under the restfulness which will come to your minds, let your imaginations float, under the direction of the Chorus, into the realms of delightful fancy and laughter.  May we meet again.


ORCHESTRA—EXITS 6, 7, 8, 9 lead to 48th Street.  EXITS 1, 2, 3, 4 lead to Court.




GALLERY—EXITS 18, 19, 20, 21 lead to Fire Escapes.  EXITS 22, 23, Stairway to 48th Street.



BALCONY—EXITS 10, 11, 12, 13, leading to Fire Escapes.  EXITS 14, 15, 16, 17, Stair