AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE.
by Alice Cary.
(Tableaux Illustrating This Poem, Arranged Especially for the “Preston Library.”)
Only the “cue” lines are given for each tableau, the well-known poem being found in various collections, and space forbidding an entire reprint.
Characters and Costumes:--The old man, who is speaking; the artist, who may be a young man, in sack coat or cardigan jacket, with fez or smoking cap; the mother in quaint old style dress, hair parted on forehead; two small boys in roundabout and long pants, such as were worn thirty years ago.
TABLEAUX.
First scene, cue lines:
“O good painter, tell me true,
Has your hand the cunning to draw
Shapes of things that you never saw?”
Artist’s studio; pictures on walls and easels; bric-a-brac on what-not or chiffonier; artist paints at easel in center front of platform, side face to audience; customer enters from left, hat in hand, facing audience, looking earnestly at artist.
Second scene, cue line:
“At last we stood at our mother’s knee.”
Sitting room, rather plainly furnished with old style chairs, sofa, etc.; mother at left of front center; boys standing at her knee, grouped with three-quarter faces toward the audience; mother looking very grave; boy having bird’s nest stands so that nest may be seen.
Third scene. Studio again.