A HUNDRED YEARS AGO
THE style in which Mr. Phelps produced Macbeth at Sadler's Wells has been imitated in several respects—not completely—by the manager of the Haymarket. An alteration of the costume, in accordance with our knowledge of the dress worn in the dim days of Macbeth, and a trans- formation of the banquet from an ordinary feast into a display of rude but substantial magnificence—these are the chief points in which Mr. Phelps has been imitated ; certain strange little feathers, which have been compared to the head-gear of the Ojibbeways, belonging to the Haymarket management alone. The original and poetic manner in which the witches were made to float through the air and vanish at Sadler's Wells has not been followed ; but the weird sisters have been treated in the usual style. At the same time, the dress of Hecate, in etherial robes, indicating a being of a preternatural character, instead of a grim, middle-aged witch, is a commendable novelty. The laughter which accompanied Mr. Buckstone's impersonation of one of the witches on the first night—a laughter in which, be it remarked, the actor joined—considerably diminished the terror of the apparition.
(From the Spectator of June 9th, 1849.)
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