As Malvolio Mr. Tree excelled all his predecessors. Even the old playgoer yielded his admiration to the fantastic charms of this egotist, who displayed just the right touch of absurdity in every gesture, in every inflection of his voice, and in every detail of his clothes, who was so elegant with his elongated stick, and his blade-green and yellow slashed dress with its monster ruff and foppish frills.
Miss Constance Collier as Viola wore a dress of grey embroidered with silver, the cap of scarlet tossing a blue tassel, while her pouch of crimson velvet embroidered with gold had peculiar slits or pockets for weapons, and her sleeves hung wing-like in exact copy of the Albanian costume, a happy idea, since the Illyria of Shakespeare is the Albania of to-day.
Desdemona, as played by Miss Gertrude Elliot in Forbes Robertson's production of Othello at the Lyceum Theatre, was a sweet and dainty creature indeed, wearing the palest of colours, white, pale blue and silver, and gold, with a trellis of pearls on her fair head, and ribbons and pearls entwined in her flowing locks.
MISS GERTRUDE ELLIOT AS DESDEMONA.
Véronique, the first of a new series of comic operas with a plot, was remarkable altogether for its exquisite frocks. No prettier harmony could have been imagined than the chrysoprase-green and white of the first act, unless it be the many gradations of pink, cerise, and red which graced the last act in company with a little band of maidens clad in pale-lemon colour. The picture of Véronique shows her with the close lace cap threaded with little green ribbons, and with short soft glacé sacque trimmed with ribbons, and this she wore in the famous swing scene, where the daintiest of little early Victorian brides danced in white muslin and a poke bonnet under the shade of pink and white chestnut trees.
The Othello of my picture is wearing a dress of thick woollen fabric in deep cream tone; his head is bound with a white turban, in which greenly glistens a huge emerald, emeralds being embroidered on the sleeves interspersed with a design of red silk; and there are jewels of all colours encrusted in his sword-belt, and his sash is of red cashmere fringed with red and green.
It is invidious to make comparisons—I have heard this for many years, and known it even longer—yet I would boldly declare that there are but few ladies upon the stage who understand the important fact that, by the dressing of the hair and the decoration of the head, they may make or mar the most gorgeous or most simple garment. Miss Ellen Terry and Mrs. Tree share a talent for historical head-dressing, whilst of the younger generation Miss Dorothea Baird and Miss Lily Brayton most justly deserve the palm of excellence for the way they express their sense of period in the arrangement of their tresses, and will dismiss all hankerings after the merely becoming in the higher interests of the entirely appropriate.