swing back and forth at the lightest
touch. They are not even capable of expressing the anger of an
irate _pater familias_ who, on leaving his home after a poor
dinner, slams the door behind him "so that it shakes the whole
house." (On the stage the house sways.) I have also contented
myself with a single setting, and for the double purpose of making
the figures become parts of their surroundings, and of breaking
with the tendency toward luxurious scenery. But having only a
single setting, one may demand to have it real. Yet nothing is more
difficult than to get a room that looks something like a room,
although the painter can easily enough produce waterfalls and
flaming volcanoes. Let it go at canvas for the walls, but we might
be done with the painting of shelves and kitchen utensils on the
canvas. We have so much else on the stage that is conventional, and
in which we are asked to believe, that we might at least be spared
the too great effort of believing in painted pans and kettles.

I have placed the rear wall and the table diagonally across the
stage in order to make the actors show full face and half profile
to the audience when they sit opposite each other at the table. In
the opera "Aida" I noticed an oblique background, which led the eye
out into unseen prospects. And it did not appear to be the result
of any reaction against the fatiguing right angle.

Another novelty well needed would be the abolition of the foot-lights.
The light from below is said to have for its purpose to make the
faces of the actors look fatter. But I cannot help asking: why must
all actors be fat in the face? Does not this light from below tend
to wipe out the subtler lineaments in the lower part of the face,
and especially around the jaws? Does it not give a false appearance
to the nose and cast shadows upward over the eyes? If this be not
so, another thing is certain: namely, that the eyes of the actors
suffer from the light, so that the effective play of their glances
is precluded. Coming from below, the light strikes the retina in
places generally protected (except in sailors, who have to see the
sun reflected in the water), and for this reason one observes
hardly anything but a vulgar rolling of the eyes, either sideways
or upwards, toward the galleries, so that nothing but the white of
the eye shows. Perhaps the same cause may account for the tedious
blinking of which especially the actresses are guilty. And when
anybody on t