I had
imagined in my simplicity that effects were far easier to produce
on the modern stage since the introduction of electric light. Sir
Johnston Forbes-Robertson, than whom there can be no greater
authority, tells me that this is not so. To my surprise, he
declares that electric light is too crude and white, and that it
destroys all illusion. He informs me that it is impossible to
obtain a convincing moonlight effect with electricity, or to give
a sense of atmosphere. Gas-light was yellow, and colour-effects
were obtained by dropping thin screens of coloured silk over the
gas-battens in the flies. This diffused the light, which a crude
blue or red electric bulb does not do. Sir Johnston Forbes-
Robertson astonished me by telling me that Henry Irving always
refused to have electric light on the stage at the Lyceum, though
he had it in the auditorium. All those marvellous and complicated
effects, which old playgoers must well recollect in Irving's
Lyceum productions, were obtained with gas. I remember the lovely
sunset, with its after-glow fading slowly into night, in the
garden scene of the Lyceum version of Faust, and this was all done
with gas.
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