The
brawling of the rival houses in the streets, the procession of girls to
wake Juliet on her wedding morning, the musicians, the magnificent
reconciliation of the two houses which closed the play, every one on the
stage holding a torch, were all treated with a marvelous sense of
pictorial effect.
Henry once said to me: "'Hamlet' could be played anywhere on its acting
merits. It marches from situation to situation. But 'Romeo and Juliet'
proceeds from picture to picture. Every line suggests a picture. It is a
dramatic poem rather than a drama, and I mean to treat it from that
point of view."
While he was preparing the production he revived "The Two Roses," a
company in which as Digby Grant he had made a great success years
before. I rehearsed the part of Lottie two or three times, but Henry
released me because I was studying Juliet; and as he said, "You've got
to do all you know with it."
Perhaps the sense of this responsibility weighed on me. Perhaps I was
neither young enough nor old enough to play Juliet. I read everything
that had ever been written about her before I had myself decided what
she was. It was a dreadful mistake. That was the first thing wrong with
my Juliet--lack of original impulse.
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