Dorriforth. And what else was there?
Florentia. There was very good acting.
Amicia. I also went, and I thought it all, for a sportive, wanton thing, quite painfully ugly.
Auberon. Uglier than that ridiculous black room, with the invisible people groping about in it, of your precious “Duc d’Enghien?”
Dorriforth. The black room is doubtless not the last word of art, but it struck me as a successful application of a happy idea. The contrivance was perfectly simple—a closer night effect than is usually attempted, with a few guttering candles, which threw high shadows over the bare walls, on the table of the court-martial. Out of the gloom came the voices and tones of the distinguishable figures, and it is perhaps a fancy of mine that it made them—given the situation, of course—more impressive and dramatic.
Auberon. You rail against scenery, but what could belong more to the order of things extraneous to what you perhaps a little priggishly call the delicacy of personal art than the arrangement you are speaking of?
Dorriforth. I was talking of the abuse of scenery. I never said anything so idiotic as that the effect isn’t helped by an appeal to the eye and an adumbration of the whereabouts.
Auberon. But where do you draw the line and fix the limit? What is the exact dose?
Dorriforth. It’s a question of taste and tact.
Florentia. And did you find taste and tact in that coal-hole of the Théâtre Libre?