The Yellow Jacket

Yellow Jacket, The (1912), a play by George C. Hazelton and J. Harry Benrimo. [Fulton Theatre, 80 perf.] When Chee Moo (Saxone Morland) bears the emperor an ugly baby, both she and her son, Wu Hoo Git, are given to a farmer to be put to death. The farmer spares them, and, while Chee Moo soon dies, Wu Hoo Git (George Relph) grows up to be a handsome young man. Guided by the spirit of his dead mother and by his beloved Suey Sin Fah (Grace A. Barbour), he bests his rival stepbrother and secures the yellow jacket that signifies he is emperor. Much of the story is told by a Chorus (Signor Perugini), while a dour, cigarette‐smoking Property Man (Arthur Shaw) moves makeshift scenery about. Hailed by Walter Prichard Eaton as “a triumph for all concerned,” the play was supposedly derived from several real Chinese plays and designed to show American playgoers what Chinese drama was like. Over the next twenty years it was given important revivals, several of which outran the original production.