In other words, the stage was very shallow,
and appears to have been arranged for a number of performers standing in a
line, like a company of soldiers. There stands the silent skeleton,
however, as impressive by what it leaves you to guess and wonder about as
by what it tells you. It has not the sweetness, the softness of
melancholy, of the theater at Arles; but it is more extraordinary, and one
can imagine only tremendous tragedies being enacted there--
"Presenting Thebes' or Pelops' line."
At either end of the stage, coming forward, is an immense wing--immense in
height, I mean, as it reaches to the top of the scenic wall; the other
dimensions are not remarkable. The division to the right, as you face the
stage, is pointed out as the green-room; its portentous altitude and the
open arches at the top give it the air of a well. The compartment on the
left is exactly similar, save that it opens into the traces of other
chambers, said to be those of a hippodrome adjacent to the theater.
Various fragments are visible which refer themselves plausibly to such an
establishment; the greater axis of the hippodrome would appear to have
been on a line with the triumphal arch.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208