th the dark of evening. Slowly in the distance a round and yellow
moon rose rolling, its beams rippling over the moving waters of a lake.
There was a murmur of approbation in the audience; and that murmur was just
loud enough to deaden the lyric beauty of the lines in which Lorenzo and
Jessica gave expression to the spirit of the night. The audience could not
look and listen at the self-same moment; and Shakespeare was sacrificed for
a lime-light. A wise stage-manager, when he uses a set as magnificent, for
example, as the memorable garden scene in Miss Viola Allen's production of
_Twelfth Night_, will raise his curtain on an empty stage, to let the
audience enjoy and even applaud the scenery before the actors enter. Then,
when the lines are spoken, the spectators are ready and willing to lend
them their ears.

This point suggests a discussion of the advisability of producing
Shakespeare without scenery, in the very interesting manner that has been
employed in recent seasons by Mr. Ben Greet's company of players. Leaving
aside the argument that with a sceneless stage it is possible to perform
all the incidents of the play in their original order, and thus give the
story a greater narrative continuity, it may also be maintained that with a
bare stage there are far fewer chances of dispersing the attention of the
audience by attracting it to insignificant details of setting. Certainly,
the last act of the _Merchant_ would be better without the mechanical
moonrise than with it. But, unfortunately, the same argument for economy of
attention works also in the contrary direction. We have been so long used
to scenery in our theatres that a sceneless production requires a new
adjustment of our minds to accept the unwonted convention; and it may
readily be asserted that this mental adjustment disperses more attention
than would be scattered by elaborate stage effects. At Mr. Greet's first
production of _Twelfth Night_ in New York without change of scene, many
people in the audience could be heard whispering their opinions of the
experiment,--a fact which shows that their attention was not fixed entirely
upon the play itself. On the whole, it would probably be wisest to produce
Shakespeare with very simple scenery, in order, on the one hand, not to dim
the imagination of the spectators by elaborate magnificence of setting,
and, on the other, not to distract their minds by the unaccustomed
conventions of a sceneless stage.

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