is usually rented by theatrical companies from the United States.
Most Mexican towns of any size have a playhouse of their own; but the theatre is decidedly not an institution in provincial Mexico. Some of the provincial houses, as at Guadalajara and Guanajuato, are constructed on the most elaborate modern lines, but there is little patronage of these palatial buildings, as they are only open on the occasion of a visit of a large opera or dramatic company. In this way, many houses are closed for months together. The bull-ring has killed theatrical appreciation among the lower classes in Mexico, who prefer its more sanguinary excitements to the milder pleasures of the sock and buskin.
As with our stock companies half a century ago, the Mexican theatrical performances are usually divided into several acts or little plays, each lasting an hour or so, called a tanda. The theatre-goer may purchase a ticket for one of these or for the entire performance. The people sit in the foyer like those waiting their turn at a picture-house, and when the tanda is done they take the places of those who leave at its conclusion. There are usually four or five tandas in an evening's "show."
Prices are cheap—from the twopenny seats in the gallery (where the darker castes sit) to the sixpence-per-tanda fauteuils beneath. One does not pay as he enters, but his money is taken by a collector between the acts when he is seated. The males in the audience do not remove their hats until the rise of the curtain, and at its fall at once replace their head-gear. It is not usual to dress for the theatre except on gala occasions, which generally occur on fiestas and Sundays, when the house displays a scene of brilliance and animation not to be surpassed anywhere. Smoking is indulged in in all parts of the house, and refreshments are handed round.
The circus is much more popular in Mexico than the theatre. Its glitter and its horsemanship an art so dear to the Mexican of all grades—naturally attract the people.
