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Show A RICHARD III. On one occasion I was acting the principal character in an equestrian adaptation of "Richard III," in which every arrangement had been made with the view to a grand striking display at the close of the piece, immediately after the encounter between Richard and the Earl of Richmond in which the monarch is killed. About forty horses and a body of supernumeraries representing the rival armies are massed within the ring, forming an imposing tableau. The dead king being then thrown across a horse, the procession slowly winds out. The fight commenced. My fierce and relentless opponent, Richmond, was represented by Miss Ada Jacobs - once famous as Mazeppa - who, after a long and terrible passage of arms, thrust her cruel blade between my left arm and my side, and I fell to the ground as dead as Julius Caesar. My eyes were closed, but I heard the tramp of the horses' hoofs as they entered the ring, some of them coming close to my head. I was wishing that they would not come quite so near, when suddenly a foot came down upon my chest. I struggled over and sprang up - I, the dead monarch - and in doing so, well nigh upset my opponent, Richmond, who, to add an unrehearsed feature to our tableau vivant, had set her foot upon the breast of her fallen foe! The reader may imagine the burst of laughter which greeted this absurd conclusion of a highly tragic display; nor was the merriment confined to the audience, for the performers joined most heartily in it, though they knew that for a moment it had given me a terrible fright. However, "Richard was himself again" with a vengeance, though at the wrong part of the performance, and his humble representative had proved anew the truth of the adage that there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. - Chambers' Journal. |