Macduff was attired more like a Lake Superior Indian than anything else, with a superfluity of red flannel fringe, and silver rings in his ears and nose.
Lady Macbeth rejoiced in a tin crown with seven points, each one with a crescent on top, brass-heeled gaiters, a dress with a purple waist, and a green baize train, two cameo bracelets, and lemon-colored kid gloves.
Old King Duncan was a young man who seemed to labor under the impression that to support his royal dignity it was only necessary to grin incessantly, and turn his toes in when he walked; his royal highness had on a high hat with a red feather, plaid pantaloons (being the only symptom of Scotch costume visible during the evening), and an embroidered vest, through which, as he wore no coat, the sleeves of his blue shirt appeared in agreeable contrast; he sported a silver watch, four seal rings, an opera glass, and a gold-headed cane.
All the other characters were dressed with equal regard to propriety and elegance of costume, and with equal disregard to expense.
The warlike paraphernalia were on the same appropriate scale; instead of Scottish claymores and basket-hilted swords, muskets were introduced which had probably seen service in some target company, until too battered and damaged for further use; shields were dispensed with except in the single case of Macduff,—instead of daggers, many were provided with horse-pistols, and one aspiring individual had a sword-cane and a slung-shot.
Several of the "supes" were painted like Indians, and carried banners made of horse-blankets, nailed to barrel staves—the three witches had each a hoe and a stable-fork, and Hecate was equipped with a straw-hat and a pair of linen drawers put on hindside foremost.
The play commenced, and every thing proceeded in the greatest harmony until the caldron scene, when the apparitions, instead of rising through the trap into the caldron, deliberately crawled from the ring on their hands and knees, and stuck their heads through a hole in a board which was painted in admirable imitation of a dinnerpot, and delivered their prophetic speeches in a huge whisper to the anxious Thane.
The apparition of a "child's head crowned," as the stage direction reads, was done by a fat piccaninny, who was drawn on screaming and kicking in a willow basket by a hidden rope, and the speech was read by the prompter, who squatted down behind the basket, and held his hand over the baby's mouth in a vain effort to stop his noise.
During this scene Macbeth, who was too obese to stand for so long a time comfortably, seated himself composedly on a three-legged stool which did duty afterwards as a throne,—and in fact, whenever during the performance he found himself incommoded by the warmth, he would sit flat down on the most convenient resting-place.
His rendering of the dagger scene was peculiarly original—he took his butcher-knife, tied it by a tow string to a pitch-fork which he stuck in the middle of the stage, sat flat down on the floor before it, and proceeded to deliver the speech with great force and emotion; pausing occasionally to mop his forehead with a yellow bandana handkerchief, and refresh himself by long sips from a pewter mug of beer which he had bestowed in his original shield.