Personal reminiscences of Henry IrvingStoker, Bram
General
Personal reminiscences of Henry Irving
Stoker, Bram
Actors -- Great Britain -- Biography; Irving, Henry, Sir, 1838-1905
Thus it was that in the play Napoleon in his study, when the scene
opened and he made his first appearance, sat behind a huge writing-table
piled with books; he sat on an exceedingly low chair so that he seemed
dwarfed. The room was a vast one with pillars and pilasters which
carried the eye upward from the floor. The attendants, the soldiers on
guard, the generals and statesmen who surrounded him were all big, fine
men. The ladies who played the Princesses, his sisters, were of good
stature, and Ellen Terry is a tall woman. He applied here to himself the
lesson of juxtaposition which in _Cymbeline_ he had used for Ellen
Terry’s service in the previous year. She, a tall, fine woman, had to
represent a timid young girl. Matters had therefore to be so arranged
that size should be made a comparative and not an absolute matter. To
this end Imogen was surrounded by the tallest and biggest women
obtainable. The Queen looked, and Helena was, tall, and such
miscellaneous ladies as are possible in a royal _entourage_ even in the
semi-mythical days of early England were simply giantesses. Amid her
surroundings her timidity seemed natural to one so sweet and tender and
almost frail. The towering height and girth of the trees and the
architecture and stonework lent themselves to the illusion. All the men
too were tall and of massive build, so that the illusions of size and
helplessness were perfect.
Irving was now face to face with the same difficulty, but reversed;
there was still the matter of his own proportions. Long before, when we
had spoken of the difficulties ahead of him in representing the part, he
had said:
“I shall keep the proportions of Napoleon. After all it is only dressing
a big doll instead of a little one. They have given me a big doll,
whereas Napoleon had a little one. No one need notice the difference,
unless the dolls are put together!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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