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

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by the Doctor and "ihc Gentlewoman and uncu-oorted by Macbcth.
If, as has been suggested above, Irving cmhr sized the importance
of the physical contact and mutual comforting on the part
of Macbeth and his wife, this scene would apperr to have had
a oooci 1 significance in his production. It certainly lent
itself to Ellen Terry's faculty for expressive gesture -
according to The Times i
.Vhile Miss Terry w; Iks in her sleep she holds
the house in a state of absolute, almost r> sinful,
stillness: her face is hn,rv;nrd and worn, her eyes
have a far away look, end as she soliloquizes,
her body sways to toid fro in a strangely awcinspiring
fashion.. .After the actress's withdrawal,
the house recovers itself with r.n effort, as if it
had been hypnotised.
The Saturday Review nas similarly impressed, and noticed that
"the recapitulation of the actual scene" of the murder wc/o
done "with just that r±r of reality v.liich carries v/itli it
conviction without a touch of brutality". Archer found the
scene inadequate - "she looked it to admiration, but did lit-jle
more" - vvhile The. Stage^ PC- sitting that the act re DC looked
"a beautiful picture, the conception of a poetic mind re , thought
that the "white clinging gamcuts and pain-strained free"
colled for "rdnirrvtion rather than pity and awe". Gordon Crair;,
in Ellen Terry one1, he_r Secret --olf (1931), cu : ;ested a rer.son
for the ineffectiveness of the
...you die1 not rliucder at the thought beneath
the words: "The Thane of vife had a vife - v/liere
ic she no-.v?" you only felt: "Poor Ellen Terry -
she is so oorry for tlic Thane of Fife's v/ife,
and is \vondcring where she can no'-'^i ily be now,
poor, poor de r. v.lu.t a nice V.-JJ.TII.
(p.
ilot every critic may hr.vc f::lt the filir.l CJT" '• thy of Crrij
for liic notlior, bu-t there was obviously some connection between
the el'fecto of her pictori'-l style and tac "nild" int^r-'-rotntion
of Via ch-racter. Other acorocses caul? i..iprecs by their
silent av>r>e:/rc.nce in this scene, and "lay hold of" the
•'7
audience's
"very i oul3", c*s an admirer once wrote to Helen Paucit" , but
the feeling arouccc) by Elle..i To-ry in ..uch ccenec - even that
in The Cup - was one of warn cy:3r> ; 'fcy rnd pttr. cti >>\, r: tlicr
tiv n pity qu, lified by av.o-struck respect.