Let us remain together still--
Then it will be _good-night_!"
I have already said that I never could cope with Pauline Deschapelles,
and why Henry wanted to play Melnotte was a mystery. Claude Melnotte
after Hamlet! Oddly enough, Henry was always attracted by fustian. He
simply reveled in the big speeches. The play was beautifully staged; the
garden scene alone probably cost as much as the whole of "Hamlet." The
march past the window of the apparently unending army--that good old
trick which sends the supers flying round the back-cloth to cross the
stage again and again--created a superb effect. The curtain used to go
up and down as often as we liked and chose to keep the army marching!
The play ran some time, I suppose because even at our worst the public
found _something_ in our acting to like.
As Ruth Meadowes I had very little to do, but what there was, was worth
doing. The last act of "Eugene Aram," like the last act of "Ravenswood,"
gave me opportunity. It was staged with a great appreciation of grim and
poetic effect. Henry always thought that the dark, overhanging branch of
the cedar was like the cruel outstretched hand of Fate. He called it the
Fate Tree, and used it in "Hamlet," in "Eugene Aram," and in "Romeo and
Juliet.
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