Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

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a reaction of "horror" to Lady llr.cbeth's "0, never/ Shall
sun that morrow see!", and the interjection "Ha!" at her
suggestion that his face io a book where men may read strange
matters. At the end of her speech is the direction "Pause,
look at her" before " ;e will speak further", and at the end
of the scene io a note "go dejectedly - then hold out arm -
put round her & go together". It is a curiouc reminder of the
end of Act One, Scene Three, with Macbeth again fearing to
disclose his feelings f and leaving the stage with the other
characters, as if for some kind of security.
The next scene, Duncan f s arrival at Inverness, was
remarkable for itc: setting* The Times exprersed some doubt
that Irving might not iir vc staged the play too much in a
gloomy half-light, and found that a sense of mystery was not
enhanced by the "beams of limelight that occasionally followed]
the princip- 1 performers 1.' But in this seer-3, with ito torches
and "Macbeth*s dark and rowning cratle" in the background,
the scheme justified itself. The Stage gave a fuller description:
It is close on nir;lit, and the dark, sombre
building is lir;iited up from -,,it iin, . laile
fron its gate enter the sc:.-vantc and
attendants with torches, awaiting the arrival
of Duiican with his friends and soldiers. The
latter make their entrance un from the valley
to the left of the ground upon which the castle
stcnclc, and are net by Lady "lacbcth, v/ho conducts
her "honoured ruest" up to the building and
through an rvenue of servants bearing torches.
The lighting of tlie ccene solely by torches does not appear
to have been oocsiblc, and t'ic uce of linclirlrbs to ^ive
adequate visibility to tlie icrformers revolted in ;,ome
anomalies. The Pall l-'u 11 Gazette, li':e Tlio Tincn, objected to
the r rbitrary placing of these supplementary li-iit-sources,
and thought them roniniscent of "Adelphi nolo:r r ,ma". The
ttru-iccountoble becno of light "were roainders thrit Irving »o
pictorial sense v/c s the procuct of liis ctr.fc career, as much
as any c;itrr,ortlin; ry np recir,tion of artistic principles of
composition.
In the BQliloquy that followed - "If it wore done..." -
Irving again used natur: listic detcil, loaning on a pillar
at the linec "But in these cases/ e still lit vc jucrement