ability, and energy of the actors and actresses. If scenery in
Shakespearean productions be relegated to its proper place in the
background of the stage, it is necessary that the acting, from top to
bottom of the cast, shall be more efficient and better harmonised than
that which is commonly associated with spectacular representations.
The simple method of producing Shakespeare focusses the interest of
the audience on the actor and actress; it gives them a dignity and
importance which are unknown to the complex method. Under the latter
system, the attention of the spectator is largely absorbed by the
triumphs of the scene-painter and machinist, of the costumier and the
musicians. The actor and actress often elude notice altogether.

Macready, whose theatrical career was anterior to the modern
spectacular period of Shakespearean representation, has left on record
a deliberate opinion of Charles Kean's elaborate methods at the
Princess's Theatre in their relation to drama and the histrionic art.
Macready's verdict has an universal application. "The production of
the Shakespearean plays at the Princess's Theatre," the great actor
wrote to Lady Pollock on the 1st of May 1859, rendered the spoken text
"more like a running commentary on the spectacles exhibited than the
scenic arrangements an illustration of the text." No criticism could
define more convincingly the humiliation to which the author's words
are exposed by spectacle, or, what is more pertinent to the immediate
argument, the evil which is worked by spectacle on the actor.

Acting can be, and commonly tends to be, the most mechanical of
physical exercises. The actor is often a mere automaton who repeats
night after night the same unimpressive trick of voice, eye, and
gesture. His defects of understanding may be comparatively unobtrusive
in a spectacular display, where he is liable to escape censure by