A GREAT ACTRESS'S DEBUT.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1519, 12 February 1886, Page 3

A GREAT ACTRESS'S DEBUT.

Juliet was the first character played by Miss Faucit at the little theatre (pulled down a tew months ago) by the Green at Kichmond. The sta<:e door was always open, and Miss Faucit, with her sister, would Bometimes steal in and Btaud upon the empty stage with feelings of awe inspired by the silence and the gloom. " One hot afternoon," she telis us in her book "On Some of Shakespeare's Female characters," " my sister and myself, finding it yet too sunny to walk down to the river—we hud to pass the theatre on the way—took refuge in the dark cool place to rest a while. On the stage was a flight of steps and a balcony, left standing, no doubt, after rehearsal, or prepared for the next day. After sitting on the steps for a while, my sister exclaimed, ' Why, this might do for Romeo and Juliet's balcony ! Go up, oirdie, and I will be your Komeo.' Upon which, amid much laughter, and with no little stumbling over the words, we went through the balcony-scene, I being prompter. My sister and I went away to the river, leaving the shadowy gloom of the stage empty as we had found it. To our surprise and consternation we learned some iittle time after that there htd been a listener. When our friends arrived some days later, the lessee told them that, having occasion to go from the dwelling-house to his private box, he had heard voices, listened and remained during the time of our merry rehearsal. He spoke in such warm terms of the Juliet's voice, adaptability to the character, her figure —1 was tall for my age—and so forth, that in the end he prevailed upon my friends to let me make a trial on his stage. To this, at my then very tender age, they were loath to consent. But I was to be announced simply as a young lady—her iirst appearance. At the tfrst a failure would not matter; and, at any rate the experiment would show whether I had gifts or not in that direction. Thus did a little frolic prove to be the turning-point of my life."