This Wall, From The Inside,
Is, If Possible, Even More Imposing.
It formed the
back of the stage, the permanent scene, and its
enormous face was coated with marble.
It contains
three doors, the middle one being the highest, and
having above it, far aloft, a deep niche, apparently
intended for an imperial statue. A few of the benches
remain on the hillside which, however, is mainly a
confusion of fragments. There is part of a corridor
built into the hill, high up, and on the crest are the
remnants of the demolished castle. The whole place
is a kind of wilderness of ruin; there are scarcely any
details; the great feature is the overtopping wall. This
wall being the back of the scene, the space left be-
tween it and the chord of the semicircle (of the audi-
torium) which formed the proscenium is rather less
than one would have supposed. In other words, the
stage was very shallow, and appears to have been ar-
ranged for a number of performers standing in a line,
like a company of soldiers. There stands the silent
skeleton, however, as impressive by what it leaves you
to guess and wonder about as by what it tells you.
It has not the sweetness, the softness of melancholy,
of the theatre at Arles; but it is more extraordinary,
and one can imagine only tremendous tragedies being
enacted there, -
"Presenting Thebes' or Pelops' line."
At either end of the stage, coming forward, is an
immense wing, - immense in height, I mean, as it
reaches to the top of the scenic wall; the other dimen-
sions are not remarkable.
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