OTHELLO.
OTHELLO.
OTHELLO.
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VÉRONIQUE.
VÉRONIQUE.
VÉRONIQUE.
The most interesting actresses of to-day make a cult of costume, and are ever ready with views, theories, and even predilections. Miss Irene Vanbrugh, for example, who, with her sister, Miss Violet Vanbrugh, would seem to interpret all that is fashionable on the stage, and to speak materially the last word of modern style, quite unlike Miss Baird, who pleads for the lines of nature and would kill fashion, frankly declares her favourite stage costume was the kimono in which she played that exciting scene inThe Gay Lord Quex. Her experience of the crinoline period inTrelawny of the Wells, with the frilled skirts, pork-pie hats, and the hair-nets, led Miss Vanbrugh to be thankful that in real life she had escaped fashions "so detestably uncomfortable."
Another typically elegant actress is Miss Ellis Jeffries, and her personal taste inclines towards the plainest and simplest costumes, as she told me, while adding, "Of course you won't believe me, but it's true. I choose my frocks to suit my circumstances on the stage, and also to some extent the emotions I have to express; and I insisted, in spite of criticism, that, when I had to play the part of an hysterical woman, I should robe her in scarlet. I felt I couldn't be hysterical in white muslin; could you?"
Miss Marie Tempest, exploiting to perfection the sartorial possibilities ofPeg Woffington, made her first appearance in that play in a dress of daffodil yellow with pointed bodice outlined with sable, the skirt trimmed with sable, and a lace capfitting closely to her powdered head. She was amazingly hooped and paniered, and looked her most gorgeous in the second act, in a dress of white satin flounced with silver lace, profusely ornamented with ruches and rosettes of pink chiffon. A scarf of silver tissue was draped across the front of the skirt, a knot of black velvet decked the low bodice, and a fascinating little black feather nodded on one side of the head.
Again, as Becky Sharp, Miss Marie Tempest showed her nice sense of the fitness of things, gracing the historic ball on the eve of Waterloo in pink chiffon with clusters of roses, and choosing a Court gown of Empire tendency, made with a white satin train lined with cloth of gold, and embroidered in a leaf design of gold, which also appeared across the bust and on the hem of the chiffon under-skirt.
Yet Miss Tempest avowedly does not believe that the actress should subordinate her personality in any way to a general scheme. Discussing the question, she said: "I think that designers of theatrical costume as a rule are altogether oblivious of the special requirements of individual faces and figures. To the designer, it seems to me, the actress is merely a note of colour in his general scheme. Only that, and nothing more! I would urge that exactly the same kind of costume cannot possibly be becoming alike to tall, majestic women and a little insignificantnez retrousséperson like me! I cannot afford to have two or three lines going across my figure and cutting me up into slices; nor can I have my neck muffled and ruffled up to the eyes, and my shoulders loaded with heavy cloaks, without feeling perfectly swampedand overwhelmed—and looking it, which is worse! I always think," she concluded, "that a woman ought to have a large share in the designing and arranging of stage-dresses, for she can understand what is becoming far better than a man. Small matters of detail are carried out better by women than by men. And women, of course, have more patience and more perseverance."
But theatrical costume is a subject for a whole volume, not for a chapter merely, and I can touch but the fringe of it. I have felt tempted to dwell upon the past, and endeavour to trace the evolution of the idea of accurate costume on the stage from the day, perhaps, when the celebrated Mrs. Mattocks of Covent Garden copied the attire of Rubens's second wife in Vandyck's picture, so as to appear appropriately as the niece of the Governor of Bruges, inThe Royal Merchant, a play adapted from Beaumont and Fletcher. But, lacking the pen of the historian and the science of the psychologist, I have chosen the easier and more humble role of the gossip. Yet, perhaps, the elusive chatter of the actress's dressing-room may not be without its suggestive value, more vivid, possibly, than the utterings of the student, for its memories have the fragrance of yesterday. Before me as I write, secure under glass, together with its authentic pedigree, is the lace collar that Edmund Kean used to wear when he played Hamlet; yet it stirs no thrill in me because of Kean, as old Sir William Gower, in Pinero'sTrelawny of the Wells, was moved at sight of the chain Kean wore as Richard, because in his youth he had seen the great actor. But the mere thought of the soft lawn collar and cuffs that H. B. Irving wore with his"inky cloak," gold-bordered and crimson-lined, and his famous father's silver-clasped belt, brings the latest and not the least accomplished of Hamlets vividly to my mind's eye. Each tone, gesture, action, falls naturally into a harmony of memory, because the costume was as appropriate as it was picturesquely charming—in fact, it was right, which proves the truth of Sir Henry Irving's doctrine, "You can take it that the right thing on the stage is at once the most effective and the most becoming." A wise doctrine, which may be applied with irrefutable truth to the art of costume on and off the boards—a doctrine which may obtain as guidance through the land of dress in all the centuries, under all circumstances, past and to come.
THE END
Printed byR. & R. Clark, Limited,Edinburgh.
Transcriber notes:P.50.'minever' changed to 'miniver' as in 'silk lined with miniver'.P.148.'a a long' changed to 'a long'.P.227.'Egytian' changed to 'Egyptian'.Various punctuation corrected.
Transcriber notes:
P.50.'minever' changed to 'miniver' as in 'silk lined with miniver'.
P.148.'a a long' changed to 'a long'.
P.227.'Egytian' changed to 'Egyptian'.
Various punctuation corrected.