Garrick's dress as Hotspur, "a laced frock
and a Ramilies wig," was objected to, not for the good reason that it
was inappropriate, but on the strange ground that it was "too
insignificant for the character." A critic writing in 1759, while
timidly advocating the amendment of stage dress, proceeds to doubt
whether the reform would be "well received by audiences who have been
so long habituated to such glaring impropriety and negligence in the
other direction." Clearly alteration was a matter of some difficulty,
and not to be lightly undertaken.
It is well known that Garrick, in the part of Macbeth, wore a court
suit of scarlet and gold lace, with, in the latter scenes of the
tragedy, "a wig," as Lee Lewes the actor says in his Memoirs, "as
large as any now worn by the gravest of our Barons of the
Exchequer"--a similar costume being adopted by other Macbeths of that
time--Smith and Barry for instance. When the veteran actor Macklin
first played Macbeth in 1774, however, he assumed a "Caledonian
habit," and although it is said the audience, when they saw "a clumsy
old man, who looked more like a Scotch piper than a general and a
prince of the blood, stumping down the stage at the head of an army,
were generally inclined to laugh," still the attempt at reform won
considerable approbation.
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