[
    {
        "id": 211785,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1989",
        "page_number": 200,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "175\n\nwas enough to account for that. In addition quite a few women were the wives of missionaries, and in religious circles suspicions about the theatre in general and the role of females in particular often still lingered on. This was indeed so conspicuous that the list of \"contributors\" in the first issue of \"Puck\" (April 1, 1871!) mockingly included: “Our Dramatic Critiques will be undertaken by the Missionary Body who are so frequently absent from the Performances and will therefore be impartial judges of the merits of the Performances\". And then, of course, it may just have been possible that the taipans did not like to see their wives before the footlights with other men.\n\nReading about the early Thespian evenings one may nonetheless be fooled into thinking that women had in fact taken their place on the stage. In the circumstances it was only natural that the \"actresses” should be called \"Miss\" or \"Mrs.\", but what should we think about the glowing term in which one of them, a “Mrs Nesbit” (was this stage name a pun on the rather well-known British actress Louisa Nisbett?) was described on more than one occasion:\n\n“The acting of our charming favourite Mrs. Nesbit, as Mrs. Lullaby [in Henry Danvers' A Conjugal Lesson, on March 26, 1857 – JH] left nothing to be desired. It was perfect of its kind and were it not that she gave a too vivid, and, it may be, truthful portrait of that dread of club-haunting bachelors like ourselves, the matrimonial chamber, we could on the instant have made Mrs. Nesbit the offer of our hand”.* Stronger even, on February 16, 1859:\n\n#\n\n\"But where shall we find words to express our admiration of Mrs. Nesbit, that beautiful Nesbit, who, blessed with an incomparable modiste, displayed so many feminine graces, such latent charms, as effectually to revive the enthusiasm of our younger days and cause us to run round the stage door in the hope of once more beholding so fair a 'genius of the lamps'.\n\n* 34\n\nAnd in an epilogue to the evening of May 26, 1864, the ladies were again put under the spotlight:\n\n\"But stay! The Ladies' praises must be sung. These Belles were surely meant to be well rung. There's Wiggins, Lizzie, Baby, only choose.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211811,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1989",
        "page_number": 226,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "201\n\n+\n\nhimself uncomfortable, with one of the nicest looking creatures for a wife imaginable. (...) Mr. BRUSHWOOD did the 'green eyed monster' admirably and the character suited him well—we mean of course artistically. By a skilful arrangement the warmth of a kiss was made to be followed by Cool as a Cucumber. Did the manager intend this to impart a deeper meaning than is conveyed on the face of the \"play-bill\"? We have an esteem for him and hope not: for although a kiss is, sometimes, but the prelude of a coolness that surpasses even that of a cucumber, we would not have Mr PROTEUS openly hint as much\". This piece called forth all the powers of the manager himself, and so perfectly was the coolness of Mr. Plumper exhibited, whether as regards the criticism of Mr. Barkins' face or his sherry, that, had he stepped from the neighbouring ice-house directly upon the stage, he could not have looked cooler (this was a reference to the Commercial Hotel; see note 94) What a desirable companion he would make, we thought, for the hot weather, but Mr. Proteus must be so, indeed, in any weather. The playing was well sustained throughout and Mr. BRUSHWOOD did his best — and that was not a little — to fret and fume as ‘Old Barkins' — but we can scarcely say that he looked a heavy father\" (the heavy father was one of the specialist roles in a stock company). A Conjugal Lesson was \"decidedly the crowning piece of the evening and was performed with an amount of case and artistic ability which elicited loud and well merited applause\". And as the critic had evidently taken a fancy to \"Mrs. NESBIT” he continued that she “looked more fascinating and piquant than ever and quite won the hearts of the bachelor portion of the audience who were altogether at a loss to understand the bad taste of Mr. Lullaby who could stay away from such an attraction till three in the morning!” (NCH 28.3.1857).\n\n23.4.1857 (Thur)\n\nT. TAYLOR: \"Still Waters Run Deep\" (1856)\n\nT: Comedy (3 acts)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: “A Capital Match” (1852)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nTh: N.N. (C\n\n—\n\nR: That other favourite of the reviewer, Peter PROTEUS, had resigned and so the evening had to do without him. In the introduction to his report, the \"Man on the Bund\" referred to the playbill which informed him \"in capitals of vermillion that Still Waters Run Deep and of other matters besides in the like flaming manner”. About the piece he was not at all content: \"Muddy waters, however, as well as still, they turned out to be. This piece is one of those incongruous mixtures of French novel morality and English domestic life, which is as offensive and preposterous, as it is ludicrous. London milliners may persist in imitating the extravagances of French crinoline and superabundant circumference: they dress up our wives and sisters until they have destroyed every graceful curve they may have and make them look like balloons endowed with feminine heads and shoulders; and with a growl we may submit to this perversion of taste and whim of fashion. But when our playwrights, in their dearth of invention, ransack the repertories of the minor Parisian theatres for something new, which they themselves cannot originate, and stumbling upon the old and stale subject of Parisian conjugal infidelity, try to fit it into English social life, especially that of the middle class, the attempt excites at once our scorn and laughter, and ought, like monstrous bandorgans and other nuisances, to be put a stop to\". Small wonder then that in it \"there was much good acting thrown away. Mr. CLAY performed, throughout, the part he had undertaken, admirably. His conception of his character was good and was given with fidelity and ability. It was just how a blunt, honest Englishman might have been expected to act when, by some extraordinary chance, his domestic privacy is invaded by such a frenchified monstrosity as Captain Hawkesley. Mr. ROLLER too did the lean and slippered Pantaloon most successfully. His ease of manner on the stage and finished...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    }
]