like, it strikes us that it must have been difficult to carry out
those principles. One would think it must have been almost impossible
for the actors to keep up the illusion of the play, surrounded as they
were by such distracting elements. Figure to yourselves a crowd of
fops, chattering like a flock of daws, carrying their stools in their
hands, and settling around, and sometimes upon the stage itself, with
as much noise as possible. To vindicate their importance in their own
eyes they kept up a constant jangling of petty, carping criticism on
the actors and the play. In the intervals of repose which they allowed
their tongues, they ogled the ladies in the boxes, and made a point
of vindicating the dignity of their intellects by being always most
inattentive during the most pathetic portions of the play. In front
of the house matters were little better: the orange girls going to and
fro among the audience, interchanging jokes--not of the most delicate
character--with the young sparks and apprentices, the latter cracking
nuts or howling down some unfortunate actor who had offended their
worships; sometimes pipes of tobacco were being smoked. Picture all
this confusion, and add the fact that the female characters of the
play were represented by shrill-voiced lads or half-shaven men.
Imagine an actor having to invest such representatives with all the
girlish passion of a Juliet, the womanly tenderness of a Desdemona,
or the pitiable anguish of a distraught Ophelia, and you cannot but
realize how difficult under such circumstances _great_ acting
must have been. In fact, while we are awe-struck by the wonderful
intellectuality of the best dramas of the Elizabethan period, we
cannot help feeling that certain subtleties of acting, elaborate
by-play, for instance, and the finer lights and shades of intonation,
must have been impossible. Recitation rather than impersonation would
be generally aimed at by the actors.