John Philip Kemble, seduced by Godwin’s flattery and insistence, had finally been prevailed upon to put it on the stage. Kemble had made up his mind that all the good tragedies that could be written had been written, and had not his objections been overruled, the tragedy, “Antonio,” would never have been produced, and one of Lamb’s most delightful essays, in consequence, never written.
With the usual preliminaries, and after much correspondence and discussion, the night of the play came. It was produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane—what a ring it has! Lamb was there in a box next to the author, who was cheerful and confident.
It is a pity to mutilate Lamb’s account of it, but it is too long to quote except in fragments.
The first act swept by solemn and silent ... applause would have been impertinent, the interest would warm in the next act.... The second act rose a little in interest, the audience became complacently attentive.... The third act brought the scene which was to warm the piece progressively to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe, but the interest stood stone still....
It was Christmas time and the atmosphere furnished some pretext for asthmatic affections. Some one began to cough, his neighbors sympathized with him, till it became an epidemic; but when from being artificial in the pit the cough got naturalized on the stage, and Antonio himself seemed more intent upon relieving his own lungs than the distress of the author, then Godwin “first knew fear,” and intimated that, had he been aware that Mr. Kemble labored under a cold, the performance might possibly have been postponed.
In vain did the plot thicken. The procession of verbiage stalked on, the audience paid no attention whatever to it, the actors became smaller and smaller, the stage receded, the audience was going to sleep, when suddenly Antonio whips out a dagger and stabs his sister to the heart. The effect was as if a murder had been committed in cold blood, with the audience betrayed into being accomplices. The whole house rose in clamorous indignation—they would have torn the unfortunate author to pieces if they could have got him.
