" When Bottom the Weaver is allotted the part
of Pyramus, intense anxiety touching his make-up is an early sentiment
with him. "What beard were I best to play it in?" he inquires. "I will
discharge it in either your straw-coloured beard, your orange-tawny
beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard,
your perfect yellow." Clearly the beard was an important part of the
make-up at this time. Farther on, Bottom counsels his brother clowns:
"Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons
to your pumps;" and there are especial injunctions to the effect that
Thisbe shall be provided with clean linen, that the lion shall pare
his nails, and that there shall be abstinence from onions and garlic
on the part of the company generally.
Old John Downes, who was prompter at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn
Fields from 1662 to 1706, and whose "Roscius Anglicanus" is a most
valuable history of the stage of the Restoration, describes an actor
named Johnson as being especially "skilful in the art of painting,
which is a great adjument very promovent to the art of elocution.
Pages:
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238