A Reading of the Carol

Abstract

One glance at the platform is sufficient to convince the audience that Dickens thoroughly appreciates ‘stage effect’. A large screen of maroon cloth occupies the background; before it stands a light table of peculiar design, on the inner left-hand corner of which there peers forth a miniature desk, large enough to accommodate the reader’s book. On the right hand of the table, and somewhat below its level, is a shelf, where repose a carafe of water and a tumbler. ‘T is ‘a combination and a form indeed’, covered with velvet somewhat lighter in color than the screen. No drapery conceals the table, whereby it is plain that Dickens believes in expression of figure as well as of face, and does not throw away everything but his head and arms, according to the ordinary habit of ordinary speakers. About twelve feet above the platform, and somewhat in advance of the table, is a horizontal row of gas-jets with a tin reflector; and midway in both perpendicular gas-pipes there is one powerful jet with glass chimney. By this admirable arrangement, Dickens stands against a dark background in a frame of gaslight, which throws out his face and figure to the best advantage. With the book ‘Dickens’ stranded on the little desk, the comedian Dickens can transform a table into a stage; and had the great novelist concluded, at the last moment, not to appear before us, this ingenious apparatus would have taught us a lesson in the art of reading.