king
a picture of it"--a crime that is without parallel in the staging of a
play. To make a pretty picture at the expense of drama is merely to
pander to the voracity of the costumier and scene-painter.

[Footnote 1: _Polly Peachum and The Beggar's Opera_, by
Charles E. Pearce. Messrs. Stanley Paul & Company, 1913.]

What was then to be done? Added to all these objections was the
important fact that I had designed scenes that would have seriously
hampered the resources at Hammersmith. The theatre would have required
more space for storage than could possibly have been given and, in
addition, an army of stage hands would be wanted for whom there was not
in this little theatre the accommodation.

The solution was, of course, to forget one's past work, to scrap the
models, and to start feverishly afresh. The only method left untried was
the symbolic. That is to say, to hint at the eighteenth century and to
suggest that through the doors on the stage existed the London of 1728.
The scene demanded to be simple and one which, with slight modifications
in doors and windows, remained before the audience for the whole action
of the play. It was, therefore, to be a scene of which people did not
easily tire and that remained interesting, unobtrusive and formally
neat. To find such a scene it is necessary to refer back to days when
the Comic and the Tragic scenes were architectural and permanent. This I
did and, taking Palladio's magnificent scene at Vicenza, by a shameless
process of _reductio ad absurdum_, evolved the scene that is now in use
at Hammersmith. Palladio and Gay have much to forgive.

So far the scene, but it called for a corresponding treatment in the
dresses. In _The Beggar's Opera_ no one is in the height of fashion.
Macheath and certain Ladies of the Town alone "keep Company with
Lords and Gentlemen," and even then there must have been apparent a
distinction. Macheath is unaltered. Here it was essential to keep to
tradition. Macheath in a blue coat is unthinkable. The rest of the
characters are frankly in the neighbourhood of Newgate. The clothes
of Peachum and Lockit would be as equally unfashionable and just as
possible thirty years before as thirty years after 1728, whilst the
footpads are clad in whatever Georgian rags that happened to come their
way. With the women I have taken greater licence. I have kept faithfully
to the outlines of the age, the close-fitting bodice, the flat hoops,
the square