Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 112: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

IIo temple idol, as exacting as Fate, as tireless as time itself, kept everybody occupied. There was no return to the place across the street where the beasts of burden rested; the only pause between rehearsals was at noon, when food was brought in baskets and all except Ommony munched greasy chupatties in the wings; for him there was special food provided, brought by an ostensible Brahman and served behind a screen. A Tibetan make-up man, a master crafts- man, spread the tools of his trade on the stage behind the well and took every one in hand in turn under the lama’s critical supervision. Even Diana had to be touched up; daubs of paint were smeared around her eyes to make them look huge and supernatural, and her ordinary gaunt- ness was enhanced by dark streaks that made her ribs appear to stand out prom- inently. Trunks full of costumes were dumped in the wings by methodical, matter-of-fact Tibetans, who seemed to have gone through the same performance scores of times and to know exactly what to do, and when, and how. They dressed the protesting actors more or less by main force, ignor- ing Maitraya’s protests, pulling, adjusting, stitching, until every costume hung exactly as the lama said it should. They provided Dawa Tsering with a devil-mask and a suit of dragon scales— then showed him himself in a mirror, which entirely solved that problem; he liked him- self so well in the disguise that he could have acted Hamlet init. But all he was re- quired to do was to laugh like a fiend at intervals, and to dance on and off stage whenever the lama signaled from behind the well. He was supposed to be the spirit of the underworld who mocked men’s efforts. There was no supper; nobody remembered it. Rehearsals continued until they had to lower the curtain because the audience be- gan to straggle in and squat on the matted floor in groups, munching betel nut. The orchestra tuned up at once. Three quarters of an hour before the curtain was supposed to rise the house was crowded to suffocation. Stunned by the music, which crashed and blared arresting heraldry of doom or something like it—and nothing fascinates as much as doom foretrumpeted— the audience forgot to talk. Adventure When the curtain went up slowly, as if raised by the last resounding boom of the radongs, there was utter silence, in which the thrill behind the women’s gallery grating could almost be felt in the wings. And at the very last minute, before the king walked on, the lama, from behind the well, signaled unexpectedly to Dawa Tser- ing to laugh like a ghoul and dance across the stage. It wasinspiration. Inacountry that believes implicitly in devils, that, fol- lowing the cataclysmic music, produced the perfect state of mind in which to watch the play; when Maitraya wallked on he was heard with almost agonized attention. There was not a gasp from the audience until it was Diana’s turn to speak, when the lama croaked her line so comically that even the actors laughed, and, presumably because the gods who guard coincidence ap- proved, she put her head to one side and cocked an ear at the audience. It brought the house down. It was so exactly timed to break suspense; the marvel that a dog should speak was so astonishing; that an earthquake after that could hardly have called the crowd’s at- tention to itself. Every spoken word and every move was watched as if earth’s destiny depended on the actors’ lips, and Diana’s three short speeches were received as if some god in the form of an animal were on the stage. When she had spoken about vermin the lama tickled her with a straw and she scratched herself; shrill laughter from be- hind the women’s grille gave evidence that not a gesture of her left hind foot was missed. When the curtain came down at the end of the prolog the applause out- thundered the orchestra. “Tt succeeds!’’ announced Maitraya, strut- ting across the stage in the way of the scene shifters. “I told you so! I said it would! Trust me to know! Acting—good acting—technique can accomplish any- thing!” The lama recognized familiar symptoms and was prompt. He gathered all the actors close around him in the wings and what he said was aimed straight at Mai- traya, although he appeared to be watching Dawa Tsering through the corner of his eye: “That which is not excellent is no good. There shall be no second act, unless I can be sure of more attention to my signals. I CoOMmMicbool Wh) © 5}