Miss Fanny Kemble, in her clever record of her experiences in the
United States, relates the following, which occurred in one of her
provincial engagements. The play was _Romeo and Juliet_. "My Romeo,"
says Miss Kemble, "had gotten on a pair of trunk-breeches, which
looked as if he had borrowed them of some worthy Dutchman a hundred
years ago. Had he worn them in New York, I could have understood it
as a compliment to the ancestry of that good city; but here to adopt
such a costume in _Romeo_ was perfectly unaccountable. They were of a
most unhappy choice of colour, too--dull, heavy-looking blue cloth,
and offensive crimson satin, all bepuckered, and beplaited, and
bepuffed, till the young man looked like a magical figure growing out
of a monstrous, strange-coloured melon, beneath which descended his
unfortunate legs, thrust into a pair of red slippers, for all the world
like Grimaldi's legs en costume for _Clown_. The play went off pretty
smoothly, except that they broke one man's collar-bone and nearly
dislocated a woman's shoulder, by flinging the scenery about. My bed
was not made in time, and when the scene drew, half-a-dozen carpenters,
in patched trousers and tattered shirt-sleeves, were discovered
smoothing down my pillows and adjusting my draperies. The last scene is
too good not to be given verbatim:--
"_Romeo._ Rise, rise, my Juliet,
And from this cave of death, this house of horror,
Quick let me snatch thee to thy Romeo's arms."
Here he pounced upon me, plucked me up in his arms like an
uncomfortable bundle, and staggered down the stage with me.
"_Juliet_ (_aside_). Oh! you've got me up horribly! That'll never do.
Do let me down, pray let me down.
_Romeo._ There, breathe a vital spirit on thy lips,
And call thee back, my soul, to life and love.
_Juliet_ (_aside_). Pray put me down; you'll certainly throw me down,
if you don't set me on the ground directly."
In the midst of "Cruel, cursed fate," his dagger fell out of his dress;
I, embracing him tenderly, crammed it back again, because I knew I
should want it again in the end.
"_Romeo._ Tear not our heart-strings thus!
They crack! they break! Juliet! Juliet!
[_Dies._]
_Juliet_ (to _Corpse_). Am I smothering you?
_Corpse_ (to _Juliet_). Not at all. Could you be so kind, do you
think, as to put my wig on again for me? It has fallen off.
_Juliet_ (to _Corpse_). I'm afraid I can't; but I'll throw my muslin
veil over it. You've broken the phial, haven't you?
[CORPSE _nodded_.]
_Juliet_ (to _Corpse_). Where's your dagger?
_Corpse_ (to _Juliet_). 'Pon my soul, I don't know."
The Mulberries, a Shakspearian Club.
At the thirty-fourth Anniversary of the Shakspeare Club, at
Stratford-on-Avon, on April 23rd, 1858, the President, Mr. Buckstone,
of the Haymarket Theatre, related, with much humour, the following
interesting account of the above Shakspearian Club:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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