3-085-831 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy, "The Coxcomb," performed by the Elizabethan Stage Society in the Inner Temple Hall, [London,] 1898. 'Mercury (Mr. Sherbrooke) introducing Maria (Miss Everitt) to his mother, the Countrywoman (Miss Hepworth). The Society...hardly justifies its existence by its production of Beaumont and Fletcher's curious comedy...a drama of rank intrigue and gross humour it is, and nothing more...the society which aims at reproducing the stage methods of Shakspere's own days is itself guilty of some of the crimes of our wicked modern managers. True, we have plain and simple scenery, virginals and viols, farthingales and ruffs, rushlights and the rest. But why cut and bowdlerise the text? Why, too, allow a woman in a man's part? Not that the young lady in question did not make a very personable Ricardo, not that she did not deliver the love-sick hero's lines with genuine force. Yet why a woman? For some reason or other neither this actress's name nor that of Antonio's representative appeared on the programme. But presumably it was Mr. William Poel who played so well the complaisant husband or "coxcomb" in his many disguises. Miss Surrey's pretty but rather stagey Viola and Mr. Sherbrooke's amusing lover also deserve mention.' From "Illustrated London News", 1898.