Profound commiseration seems due to the Elizabethan playgoer, who was
liable to have his faith in the tenderness and gentleness of Desdemona
rudely shaken by the irruption on the stage of a brawny,
broad-shouldered athlete, masquerading in her sweet name. Boys or men
of all shapes and sizes squeaking or bawling out the tender and
pathetic lines of Shakespeare's heroines, and no joys of scenery to
distract the playgoer from the uncouth inconsistency! At first sight
it would seem that the Elizabethan playgoer's lot was anything but
happy.
VII
The Elizabethan's hard fate strangely contrasts with the situation of
the playgoer of the nineteenth or twentieth century. To the latter
Shakespeare is presented in a dazzling plenitude of colour. Music
punctuates not merely intervals between scenes and acts, but critical
pauses in the speeches of the actors. Pictorial tableaux enthral the
most callous onlooker. Very striking is the contrast offered by the
methods of representation accepted with enthusiasm by the Elizabethan
playgoer and those deemed essential by the fashionable modern manager.
There seems a relish of barbarism in the ancient system when it is
compared with the one now in vogue.
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