The haughty gallant, gay Lothario, is slain at the close of the fourth
act, but his corpse figures prominently in the concluding scenes. The
stage direction runs at the opening of the fifth act: "A room hung
with black; on one side Lothario's body on a bier; on the other a
table with a skull and other bones, a book and a lamp on it. Calista
is discovered on a couch, in black; her hair hanging loose and
disordered. Soft music plays." In this, as in similar cases, it was
clearly unnecessary that the personator of the live Lothario of the
first four acts should remain upon the stage to represent his dead
body in the fifth. It was usual, therefore, to allow the actor's
dresser to perform this doleful duty, and the dressers of the time
seem to have claimed occupation of this nature as a kind of privilege,
probably obtaining in such wise some title to increase of salary. The
original Lothario--the tragedy being first represented in 1703--was
George Powell, an esteemed actor who won applause from Addison and
Steele, but who appears to have been somewhat of a toper, and was
generally reputed to obscure his faculties by incessant indulgence in
Nantes brandy.
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