Stirling, a charming and ripe old
actress whom Henry had engaged to play the nurse, was always groaning
out that she had not rehearsed enough.
"Oh, these modern ways!" she used to say. "We never have any rehearsals
at all. How am I going to play the Nurse?"
She played it splendidly--indeed, she as the Nurse and old Tom Mead as
the Apothecary--the two "old 'uns" romped away with chief honors, had
the play all to nothing.
I had one battle with Mrs. Stirling over "tradition." It was in the
scene beginning--
"The clock struck twelve when I did send the nurse,
And yet she is not here...."
Tradition said that Juliet must go on coquetting and clicking over the
Nurse to get the news of Romeo out of her. Tradition said that Juliet
must give imitations of the Nurse on the line "Where's your mother?" in
order to get that cheap reward, "a safe laugh." I felt that it was
wrong. I felt that Juliet was angry with the Nurse. Each time she
delayed in answering I lost my temper, with genuine passion. At "Where's
your mother?" I spoke with indignation, tears and rage. We were a long
time coaxing Mrs. Stirling to let the scene be played on these lines,
but this was how it _was_ played eventually.
She was the only Nurse that I have ever seen who did not play the part
like a female pantaloon.
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