[Illustration: _Simonetta_ (_Miss HILDA BAYLEY_). "ARE YOU PLEASED WITH MY FANCY DRESS? IT WAS TO BE A GREAT SURPRISE."
_Count Andrea_ (_Mr. NEILSON-TERRY_). "NOTHING SURPRISES ME IN THIS PLAY."]
In the present case her only excuse was the old one, that she was "treated like a child." Certainly she deserved to be, for her behaviour was of the most wilful and wayward; but she was the mother of a strapping boy, and a woman who is thought old enough to play, in the premier Italian company, the part of _Desdemona_ (with the accent, too, on the second syllable) could hardly justify her complaint that she was regarded as a juvenile.
The choice of the Alfieri Theatre for the scene of the culmination of the domestic drama seemed to touch the extreme of improbability. The actors were not a poor travelling company of mummers, as in _Pagliacci_, with no decent private accommodation for this kind of thing. The protagonist of _Carnival_ was lodged in a perfectly good Venetian palace, where there was every convenience for having the matter out with his wife and her lover. For the rest the plot was commonplace to the verge of banality.
As _Silvio Steno_, in his home life, Mr. MATHESON LANG was excellently natural, but as _Othello_ his make-up spoilt his nice face and tended to alienate me. As _Simonetta_ (I got very sick of the name) Miss HILDA BAYLEY had a difficult part, and failed, from no great fault of her own, to attach our sympathies, till in the end she explained her rather inscrutable conduct in a defence which gave us for the first time a sense of sincerity in her character. There was too much play with her Carnival dress of a Bacchante, which, perhaps, was less intriguing than we were given to understand. Mr. DENNIS NEILSON-TERRY has a certain distinction, but he did not make a very perfect military paramour. His intonation seemed to lack control, and he has a curious habit of baring his upper teeth when he is getting ready to make a forcible remark.
As for the scenes, they were alleged to be Venice (where the Doges wedded the sea), but there was no visible sign of water. You called for a gondola, which always sounds better than a taxi, but it never appeared. Perhaps, however, for one has not always been very happy in one's experiences of stage navigation, this was just as well.