rave fallacy in the idea that gesture is less
important in presenting an Englishman than a member of a gesticulative
race, for vehement gesture is impressive in direct proportion to its
rarity, and effects have been produced by the fine, slight movement of
one of our actresses at a critical moment which surpassed in force
anything possible if she had been lavish in gesture throughout. Need it
be added that the training of the body insisted upon by the mime would
cause some of our players to move more gracefully on the stage? Several
of our popular players walk as if they had hired their limbs and not
had time to become accustomed to them.

Scenery at the French Plays

One might almost say there is none. A foreign management at the New
Royalty Theatre produced a number of works mounted in a fashion that
would horrify an ordinary West End London manager, and yet the rather
daring season was really successful. So much the better. Probably if the
cost of production of each play had been ten times greater nobody's
pleasure would have been appreciably increased and the receipts would
not have advanced perceptibly. It is doubtful whether the scenery for
the baker's dozen or so of plays cost as much as is often expended by
our managers on a single work.

Is there no lesson in this? Why, if an audience can be attracted,
interested, and even delighted in the Soho house, though play and
players are not aided by the expenditure of barrelfuls of money on the
mounting, should it be deemed necessary to employ a small fortune every
time a work is presented by our native managers? As far as I can judge,
the French season, although triumphant, was not marked by the appearance
of any prodigious star with whom we were not already familiar, nor were
the new pieces of astounding quality.

The truth is that the assistance given by costly mounting is very
little. The scene which by its magnificence causes a gasp of surprise
loses all its effect after two or three minutes, and unless the play and
acting are really meritorious the audience is quite as much bored when
the mounting is splendid as when it is merely decent. Possibly it is
even more bored; unwittingly it is affected by a sense of disproportion.

We all know that jewellery does not embellish a plain woman; that, on
the contrary, after a minute or two, one ceases to gaze on the gewgaws
and then the sight of the ugly face comes as something of a shock.
Consider the jarring effect