took place about twenty years ago, and I believe he is still engaged in hammering it out."
Model stage of Mr. Gilbert's new play.—II.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
Not the least interesting part of my day with Mr. Gilbert was in having his methods of working explained. Mr. Gilbert's tact and unequalled skill as a stage manager are well known, but he explained to me a decidedly novel secret which undoubtedly greatly assists him in his perfect arrangements of mise-en-scène. He has an exact model of the stage made to half-inch scale, showing every entrance and exit, exactly as the scene will appear at the theatre. Those shown in the illustrations represent the two sets which will be seen at the Lyric Theatre when his new opera is produced. Little blocks of wood are made representing men and women—the men are three inches high, and the women two and a half inches. These blocks are painted in various colours to show the different voices. The green and white striped blocks may be "tenors"; the black and yellow "sopranos"; the red and green, "contraltos"; and so on. With this before him, and a sheet of paper, Mr. Gilbert works out every single position of his characters, giving them their proper places on the model stage, and he is thus enabled to go down to rehearsal prepared to indicate every principal and chorister his proper place in the scene under consideration.
His subjects are often the outcome of pure accident. "The Mikado" was suggested by a huge Japanese executioner's sword which hung in his library—the identical sword which Mr. Grossmith used to carry on the stage as Ko-Ko. "The Yeomen of the Guard" was suggested by the beefeater who serves as an advertisement of the Tower Furnishing Company at Uxbridge Railway Station.
A rather curious and certainly unique fact in dramatic authorship, and one that is without precedent in the annals of the stage, is that Mr. Gilbert's name has appeared in the London play bills without a single break for nearly twenty-four years. On July 1 the spell was broken by the termination of his connection with the Savoy. Harry How.
"Characters."
