In producing the play, however, the members of the Shelley Society were merely carrying out the poet’s own wishes, and they are to be congratulated on the success of their experiment—­a success due not to any gorgeous scenery or splendid pageant, but to the excellence of the actors who aided them.

HELENA IN TROAS

(Dramatic Review, May 22, 1880.)

One might have thought that to have produced As You Like It in an English forest would have satisfied the most ambitious spirit; but Mr. Godwin has not contented himself with his sylvan triumphs.  From Shakespeare he has passed to Sophocles, and has given us the most perfect exhibition of a Greek dramatic performance that has as yet been seen in this country.  For, beautiful as were the productions of the Agamemnon at Oxford and the Eumenides at Cambridge, their effects were marred in no small or unimportant degree by the want of a proper orchestra for the chorus with its dance and song, a want that was fully supplied in Mr. Godwin’s presentation by the use of the arena of a circus.

In the centre of this circle, which was paved with the semblance of tesselated marble, stood the altar of Dionysios, and beyond it rose the long, shallow stage, faced with casts from the temple of Bassae; and bearing the huge portal of the house of Paris and the gleaming battlements of Troy.  Over the portal hung a great curtain, painted with crimson lions, which, when drawn aside, disclosed two massive gates of bronze; in front of the house was placed a golden image of Aphrodite, and across the ramparts on either hand could be seen a stretch of blue waters and faint purple hills.  The scene was lovely, not merely in the harmony of its colour but in the exquisite delicacy of its architectural proportions.  No nation has ever felt the pure beauty of mere construction so strongly as the Greeks, and in this respect Mr. Godwin has fully caught the Greek feeling.

The play opened by the entrance of the chorus, white vestured and gold filleted, under the leadership of Miss Kinnaird, whose fine gestures and rhythmic movements were quite admirable.  In answer to their appeal the stage curtains slowly divided, and from the house of Paris came forth Helen herself, in a robe woven with all the wonders of war, and broidered with the pageant of battle.  With her were her two handmaidens—­one in white and yellow and one in green; Hecuba followed in sombre grey of mourning, and Priam in kingly garb of gold and purple, and Paris in Phrygian cap and light archer’s dress; and when at sunset the lover of Helen was borne back wounded from the field, down from the oaks of Ida stole OEnone in the flowing drapery of the daughter of a river-god, every fold of her garments rippling like dim water as she moved.