Ah, we seem to have caught back up with time, it's 100 A.D. again. In our next stretch we shall do another time leap to the year 1368.
China; the city of tea and puppets. The earliest permanent stages in China were those belonging to temples, which were made of stone and brick with elaborate roofs. They were simple platforms with no curtain or proscenium, built high above the ground and surrounded on three sides by the spectators (similar to a thrust stage). The performances were paid for by the wealthy men of the neighbourhood and the populace stood or sat in the open courtyard of the temple to see the performance. "It was the temple stage which served as a prototype for that of the permanent playhouse of later centuries as well as the private stage used in Imperial palaces and noblemen's houses."" The tradition of private performances has only died out within very recent times. Before then, well to do people regularly invited actors to perform before their guests or on special occasions such as weddings. A well-known example of a private stage still in existence is that built for the Empress Dowager in the Summer Palace at Peking (see figure 3) . This one is more complex than most theatres, being built in three stories with special devices which allowed "evil spirits- to appear on the stage from below and "celestial beings- from the second story above. The building is marble with glazed tile roofs and pillared supports. Ordinary people were not admitted to performances such as those described above. After the temple stages, which by far were the most common kind of public theatres were temporary structures made of planks, bamboo poles and matting which could be erected with in a few hours and dismantled just as quickly. Thus ends our travel through China.
Next we shall travel half way around the world to Spain in the year 1518, the land of Corrals. In the second century B.C, Spain was conquered by the Romans and became part of the Roman Empire.
