The Movies

Papeete Goes To

By Paul Hynes

THE finding of an “Admit One’’ ticket to the Theatre Moderne, Tahiti, among some souvenirs recently, brought back some unusual memories.

The ticket was bought during the war years—about 1941, I think.

Theatre Moderne was a large, wooden, barn-like building, in the main town; Papeete. And at this period, a theatre night was an incident not easily for gotten.

The films were very old, silent jobs and mainly cowboy pictures. Hoot Gib son was prominent among the stars. Of course, there were some talkies, too. An early Deanna Durbin show was screened, but apart from the singing everyone thought it rather silly. Being a French island there were quite a few French films of ancient vintage too, but these seemed to have no plot and so the cow boys were the most popular.

At the back of the theatre a small platform jutted out from the wall about halfway up on the left wall of the build ing. Shortly after the show started, half a dozen guitarists appeared mysteriously on the platform and began to sing. These Polynesians are renowned for their beautiful singing voices. There was one singer who sang only once or twice a week with this group. His tenor voice was unmistakable, and had Gigli qualities plus the husky island technique.

Everyone in the audience sang when the silent or English shows were on as they could not understand English.

The price of admittance was cheap to a music lover, for the Tahitians are good singers, and sing naturallv in parts. The result being somewhat better than the average trained choir, for they sang from the heart and for sheer en joyment.

Sometimes the group on the platform vculd sirg gird the audience listen.

Then someone might sing solo and later everyone would join in. There seemed to be no rule for this; everything just came into being quite naturally.

When the guitarists were playing, they would often stop suddenly for no ap parent reason and then the leading singer would translate the picture dia logue from English into Tahitian for the audience for five or ten minutes. Then the music would start up again. Every thing was so informal that one forgot one was a white man and joined in on some off the simpler worded songs.

The cowboy pictures were most popu lar too, perhaps, because the cowboys played guitars and sang.

THE marvellous musical qualities of these people is apparent when in the cowboy pictures a catchy song was featured. Early next morning after the show, everyone would be sinking the song but slightly changed and with their own Tahitian words. The song would go round the island in a few hours.

At interval, there were the little tinito or Chinese carts outside, lit up by petrol and hurricane lamps. They sold cakes, de-husked green drinking coconuts, water melon, a peculiar candy, and coco nut ice cream. They also had pineapple cut in such a way that all the prickles had been taken out of the skin.

There was a fruit, too, something like a loquat, which had a big shiny seed.

Most people armed themselves with a handful of these. The seeds when

squeezed between finger and thumb travel some distance. For ten minutes after the lights went out there was quite a barrage of these seeds. Then every-

one settled down to singing and to a lesser degree, the pictures, The theatre was burnt down after the war, but the songs and music still live.