T., why is Irving playing Romeo?"
I looked at his distraught. "You should ask me why I am playing Juliet!
Why are we any of us doing what we have to do?"
"Oh, _you're_ all right. But Irving!"
"I don't agree with you," I said. I was growing a little angry by this
time. "Besides, who would you have play Romeo?"
"Well, it's so obvious. You've got Terriss in the cast."
"_Terriss!_"
"Yes. I don't doubt Irving's intellectuality, you know. As Romeo he
reminds me of a pig who has been taught to play the fiddle. He does it
cleverly, but he would be better employed in squealing. He cannot shine
in the part like the fiddler. Terriss in this case is the fiddler."
I was furious. "I am sorry you don't realize," I said, "that the worst
thing Henry Irving could do would be better than the best of any one
else."
When dear Terris did play Romeo at the Lyceum two or three years later
to the Juliet of Mary Anderson, he attacked the part with a good deal of
fire. He was young, truly, and stamped his foot a great deal, was
vehement and passionate. But it was so obvious that there was no
intelligence behind his reading. He did not know what the part was
about, and all the finer shades of meaning in it he missed.
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