Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/204

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN bearing aloft the branch of a tree to prey upon the superstitious credulity of Macbeth, where the stage can only suggest it.

Ordinarily it is a safe theatrical generalization that the inflamed imagination of the spectator, set off by the author's provocative words, is far more potent than the bald and literal photograph. In Shakespeare's own time stage scenery often consisted of nothing more than a placard reading "This is the castle of Dunsinane." The spectators painted their own sets in their minds, each to his own taste, under the inspiration of the author's words. Richard Mansfield's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" was overpowering in what it suggested, where the film's trick photography was merely grotesque. In the stage version of "Oliver Twist" the spectator does not see Bill Sykes beat Nancy to death. He sees nothing and hears only an off-stage thud and cry, but his aroused apprehension conjures up a scene that leaves him trembling. The movies insist upon showing their patrons Bill in the act of raining blows and kicks upon the cringing Nancy, and the spectator either is revolted by the brutality or is reminded that it is only make-believe.

The plot of "Macbeth" and of many of