Cymbeline - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

We should not say that it is a play remarkably
well fitted to the actors who sustain
it, but at Sadler's Veils this is a matter
of minor importance. The audience are
assembled more to see a play as a whole, than
to watch the details of acting.
(August 25, 1847).
115.
The same review gives us more information than any other on
the settings of the play:
The getting-up and dressing of "Cymbeline" is
excellent, great pains having been taken to
att.lr..' the Britons in a way that might be
supposed consistent with the mythic period of
the story. The scenic effects of which the
piece is capable are admirably brought out.
The feast at which the fatal wager is made is
very strikingly arranged and the mountainous
country inhabited by Belarius and the sons of
Cymbeline is represented by an exceedingly
clever and elaborate "set". The original
text is followed more closely than at any other
house, though some transpositions are allowed
in the order of the scenes.
This can be supplemented by reference to the Morning Chronicle
reviewer, who admires the battle ("as good as the best
'deadly charge' we have ever witnessed at Astley's") and
noted that the whole mise-en-scene was accurate -
barring some little laches in costume, which
for the sake of decency, remembering Caesar's
account of our ancestors' habilments, we could
not advise ;ir. Coombes and Miss Bailey to
rectify -
(August 24, 1347).
17
The promptbook in the British Theatre Museua ' gives
instructions for the banquet -
Costly Banquet
Statuejs to decorate the Scene
The pages have G-oblets of Wine
.oeakers - and the characters
affect to drink and return them.
(leaf facing p.16)