NORWICH THEATRE.
[CHAPTER XI.]
STAGE COSTUME AND STAGE TRICKS.
In the journals of 1723 I find various complaints of the deficiencies in the theatrical wardrobe. The shabbiness of the regal robes is especially dwelt upon, though those were splendid enough which were worn by a leading actor. Duncan and Julius Cæsar, at the above date, had worn the same robes for a century; and it was suggested that monarchy was brought into contempt by poorly-clad representatives.
It is said of Betterton, in Hamlet, that when he first beheld his father's spirit, he turned as white as his own neckcloth. Betterton wore the laced kerchief then in fashion. There was a worse fashion in part of Garrick's time. That actor dressed the young Dane in a court suit of black,—coat, waistcoat, and kneebreeches, short wig with queue and bag, buckles in the shoes, ruffles at the wrists, and flowing ends of an ample cravat hanging over his chest. Then, Woodward as Mercutio! This young nobleman of Verona, kinsman to a prince, and friend to the love-sick Montagu, did not walk his native city capped, plumed, and bemantled, according to the period, but in the dress of a rakish squire of Woodward's own days. On the top of a jaunty peruke was cocked one of those three-cornered hats, popularly known as an "Egham, Staines, and Windsor," from the figure of the finger-post on Hounslow Heath pointing to those three towns. The hat was profusely gold-laced at the borders. Round the neck of the Veronese gentleman was negligently wound a Steinkirk cravat of muslin with point of Flanders ends. The rest of the attire was that of a modern state coachman on a drawing-room day, save that the material was chiefly of velvet, and that Woodward wore high heels to his gold-buckled shoes. The waistcoat descended over the thighs, and into its pocket Woodward thrust one hand, as, with a finger of the other knowingly laid to his nose, he began the famous lines, "Oh! then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you!"
Booth's dress for Cato was not more or less absurd than Betterton's in "Hamlet." The Cato of Queen Anne's days wore a flowered gown and an ample wig!
Garrick's Macbeth was a modern Scottish serjeant-major,[84] his Romeo "a beau in a new birthday embroidery." His Richard, fancifully but more correctly decked, is preserved to us in Hogarth's picture; but when the King was thus attired, all the other persons of the drama wore court suits, powdered wigs, bags, cocked hats, and drawing-room swords! And yet the grandeur of the performance seems to have been in no way marred. When we smile at these things, we should remember that all managers who allow our old comedies to be played in modern costume, offend equally against good sense. I would have Ranger acted in a wig, as Garrick, and not in the dress of the actor's time, as Elliston played it. The chronology of costume is worthy of every manager's notice, however accustomed the eye may become to anachronisms,—as with the dress worn in 1806, by Matthews, as Old Foresight, in "Love for Love," which was the very famous and fashionable suit, worn for many a season by the graceful Wilks in that most airy of his parts, the youthful rake and gentleman, Sir Harry Wildair.
In Macklin's Macbeth, there was nothing of antiquity about the costume, which was a semi-military uniform of no, or of several periods, with a masquerade look about a good portion of it. His Hamlet was a modern gentleman in a black suit, such as might have been seen any day in the Mall. John Kemble dressed the sad young Dane, whose father had just been murdered by Hamlet's worst enemy, one who stood between him and his inheritance, in a fancy suit defying chronology, a carefully curled and powdered wig, such as never sat on Scandinavian head, and a blaze of jewelled orders—on the breast of him who courted seclusion! Altogether, there were strange things done on the stage in those days, not the least, perhaps, were comic solo dances, or compound hornpipes of a score of "merry sailors," with Highland reels, danced between the acts of the most solemn of Shakspeare's tragedies!