It has been said “The king of Shadows loves a shining mark.” If this is so, how that musician managed to escape the arrows so long is more than I can understand. For many a year he certainly has presented a target worthy the whole archery of the realm of Death.
The evening’s entertainment was made up of selections from Shakespeare’s tragedies, “Macbeth,” and “Othello.”
MACBETH.
The principal actor, whose name I forget, was the oddest and hungriest looking player I ever saw stalk across a stage, or foam and fret in histrionic effort. He looked as though he had been dangling from the lowest spoke of Fortune’s wheel for the last twenty years. His make-up was terrible also, and after I learned the performance was not an intentional burlesque, I could hardly keep from hooting whenever he appeared. As the evening advanced, however, he warmed up considerably. When he appeared as the murderous Thane moving toward the apartments of his slumbering victim, huskily repeating the thrilling lines, “The bell invites me! I go, and it is done!” he looked every inch a villain, and the little theatre rung again with the clapping and clattering of the enthusiastic audience. In “Othello” his dress was even worse than in “Macbeth.” In the scene where he smothers Desdemona, he was barefooted, and looked supremely ridiculous. I would have given double the amount I paid for admission for the glorious privilege of kicking him across the stage.
OTHELLO.
The customary pitcher-shaped lamp which the “Moor” usually bears in his hand upon this occasion, and to which he alludes when he says:—
“If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,