Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/286

238 stage owes its first important step in the reform of costume. Macready, who urged the reform still further, carried his sense of the importance of costume to such a point during the rehearsals of Henry V., that he went to bed in his armour, desiring that, not only should the dress become the part, but he should become the dress. I recollect Sir Henry Irving quoting this fact, when telling me that he himself always followed the practice of wearing the clothes for a new part a few days previous to assuming them on the stage. Sir Henry was, of course, a past master in the art of theatrical costume, and to his genius and taste more than to any other influence we may attribute its present development on the English stage.

Let the old playgoer prate enthusiastically as he will about Charles Kean, and his splendid Shakespearean revivals at the Princess's Theatre, dramatic art has never been more picturesquely, richly, and appropriately clothed than it was at the Lyceum Theatre in the great days of Henry Irving. Even to talk to him of his productions was a liberal education in all arts appertaining to the theatre. That the great actor took infinite personal trouble with every detail, and would, in his own costume, direct the cut of the drapery, the shape of the shirt collar, and the exact position of the sash, or the fold of the turban, all who were privileged to associate with him at work are fully aware. I recall many conversations with him on the subject of stage costume, and invariably he would bring out some point of its psychological bearing. As to variation in the interpretation of a character under the influence of a different dress,