Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1885 — An Awkward Resurrection. [ARTICLE]

An Awkward Resurrection.

It occurred one night when Neilson and Compton had been playing “Romeo and Juliet” at one of the provincial theaters, and happened in the scene which closes with the killing of Tybalt by Romeo's sword. “As this scene is usually ‘closed in’ well up the stage to allow Juliet’s chamber to succeed immediately, the representative of the ‘fiery Tybalt’ is always asked to die in the third or fourth entrance—i. e., at the back of the stage—and to lie close until the flats are run on and he is hidden from view. Tybalt received the sword-thrust in the usual effective fashion, and, treating the audience to a tremendous ‘back-fall,’ dropped down stiff and stark and dfad. The prompter at once gave the signal for the flats to be pulled on, but alas! the scene-shifters were ‘pulling’ at something else, and did not respond, the only movement being the shuffling of feet caused by some of the employes rushing ‘next door’ to fetch the delinquents. Having heard the whistle and the subsequent shuffling of feet, Tybalt concluded that all was right, and, calmly sitting up, he very methodically put his collar to rights, fidgeted with the button at his neck, quietly pulled down his Shakspearean shirt, and, shaking the dust off his wig, turned round to get up, when, to his astonishment and dismay, he encountered the amused gaze of the large audience intently fixed upon him. With a horrified ‘My God!’ he rapidly measured his length a second time, and, the sceneshifters having returned, the flats were immediately run on amid the uproarious laughter of every spectator before and behind the scenes.”— ‘Freund's Weekly.