Annie Kilburn by William Dean Howells

Author:William Dean Howells [Howells, William Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781411440692
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Published: 2017-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

XV

THE spring had filled and flushed into summer. Bolton had gone over the grass on the slope before the house, and it was growing thick again, dark green above the yellow of its stubble, and the young generation of robins was foraging in it for the callow grasshoppers. Some boughs of the maples were beginning to lose the elastic upward lift of their prime, and to hang looser and limper with the burden of their foliage. The elms drooped lower toward the grass, and swept the straggling tops left standing in their shade.

The early part of September had been fixed for the theatricals. Annie refused to have anything to do with them, and the preparations remained altogether with Brandreth. "The minuet," he said to her one afternoon, when he had come to report to her as a coordinate authority, "is going to be something exquisite, I assure you. A good many of the ladies studied it in the Continental times, you know, when we had all those Martha Washington parties—or, I forgot you were out of the country—and it will be done perfectly. We're going to have the ball-room scene on the tennis-court just in front of the evergreens, don't you know, and then the balcony scene in the same place. We have to cut some of the business between Romeo and Juliet, because it's too long, you know, and some of it's too—too passionate; we couldn't do it properly, and we've decided to leave it out. But we sketch along through the play, and we have Friar Laurence coming with Juliet out of his cell onto the tennis-court and meeting Romeo; so that tells the story of the marriage. You can't imagine what a Mercutio Mr. Putney makes; he throws himself into it heart and soul, especially where he fights with Tybalt and gets killed. I give him lines there out of other scenes too; the tennis-court sets that part admirably; they come out of a street at the side. I think the scenery will surprise you, Miss Kilburn. Well, and then we have the Nurse and Juliet, and the poison scene—we put it into the garden, on the tennis-court, and we condense the different acts so as to give an idea of all that's happened, with Romeo banished, and all that. Then he comes back from Mantua, and we have the tomb scene set at one side of the tennis-court just opposite the street scene; and he fights with Paris; and then we have Juliet come to the door of the tomb—it's a liberty, of course; but we couldn't arrange the light inside—and she stabs herself and falls on Romeo's body, and that ends the play. You see, it gives a notion of the whole action, and tells the story pretty well. I think you'll be pleased."

"I've no doubt I shall," said Annie. "Did you make the adaptation yourself, Mr. Brandreth?"

"Well, yes, I did," Mr. Brandreth modestly admitted. "It's been a good deal of work, but it's been a pleasure too.

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