During this incident, which did not impinge at all on the preoccupation of the company, preparations for the opera were going ahead rapidly. The play which had commanded the stage had finished its run of performances, and Powell and his forces had the full run of the theatre. Scenes were hung from the flies and all the forty-five sets of ropes that controlled them were adjusted and balanced for use. A splendid set of curtains was brought in from a rental warehouse and hung behind the proscenium, so that they could be swept aside and upward from the centre in the gloriously theatrical manner of the nineteenth century. Powell demanded, and got, a set of footlights installed. In vain did Waldo Harris demur that nobody used such things any more.

“Hoffmann’s theatre used em, and they are very becoming to the ladies,” said Powell. “We won’t make all the women look like skulls, with nothing but overhead light. And get that bloody rack of lamps taken down from in front of the proscenium; it’s totally out of character and we can do without ‘em; the light from the front of the balcony will be quite enough.”

Powell was busy, so far as was possible, transforming the small opera theatre that belonged to the Stratford Festival into a charming early-nineteenth-century house.

“We’re going to use those pretty little doors that give onto the forestage,” he told Darcourt, “and we’ll just dim the house lights to half, because in Hoffmann’s day the audience sat in full light, and everybody could see their neighbours, and chat and flirt if they didn’t like the show. Flirtation’s a good old sport and due for a revival.”

He had worked with Dulcy Ringgold to prepare pretty cartouches which decorated the little boxes beside the stage; one bore the arms of the town, and the other the arms of the province, but so treated that they had a playful, rather than an official, air. They looked like fine plaster-work, but they were pressed in the same light material as the armour worn by Arthur’s Knights.

All of this activity caused a good deal of noise, but nevertheless the singers stepped onstage from time to time and bellowed or neighed into the auditorium, and agreed that it was a nice resonant house. They were still working in rehearsal rooms under the guidance of Watkin Bourke, who appeared to put in a twelve-hour day.

The company took on new vitality when they were able to claim the theatre as their own, and friendships were struck up, enmities sharpened, and jokes whispered behind hands.

One of these originated with Albert Greenlaw, one of the black singers, who played the role of Sir Pellinore. He had found a great toy in Nutcombe Puckler, who was a comedian by profession, but never thought of himself as comic.

“Do you realize,” said Greenlaw to Vincent LeMoyne, the other black Knight, “that Nutty gets letters from his dog? Yes, I’m not kidding, from his dog! The dog’s in England, of course, but the dog writes twice a week. And in Cockney what’s more! ‘Dear Marster, I miss you terrible, but Missus says we has to be brave and go walkies every day just as if you was ‘ere. My roomatism is chronic but I takes me pills reglar, and don’t have to get up in the night more than a few times, which is an improvement, Missus says. Hurry back, covered with laurels and bring lots of lovely green bones. Love from your Woofy in which Missus joins.’ Can you beat it! I’ve known dog-nuts, but I never met a dog-nut as nutty as Nutty. Why do you suppose the dog talks Cockney?”

“It’s a class thing,” said Wilson Tinney, who played Gareth Beaumains. “Dog must be loving and beloved, but not a social equal. Certainly not a superior. Can you imagine Nutty with a titled dog? ‘Dear Puckler, your wife is looking after me splendidly in your absence, and I look forward eagerly to August 12, when the grousing begins. Accept my assurance that I look upon you not as a master, but as a humble friend.’ That wouldn’t do at all.”

“Do you know what I think?” said Vincent LeMoyne; “I think Nutty’s wife writes those letters. I suspect the dog’s illiterate.”

“You astonish me!” said Greenlaw. “Do you suppose Nutty knows?”

There was a coolness between Miss Virginia Poole, who, as the Lady Clarissant, was the only member of the female chorus to have a named role, and Gwen Larking, the Stage Manager; Miss Poole thought she should have a dressing-room apart from the Chorus, but she had been put—”thrown” was the word she used—with them in a large basement room. She appeared in all three acts and had two costumes, and yet Marta Ullmann, who appeared in only one scene as Elaine, had a dressing-room of her own on the stage level. If this was an intentional slight, what lay behind it? If it was an oversight, should it not be put right as fast as possible?

There was a row, lasting for a day, between Powell and Waldo Harris, because a trapdoor that Powell had ordered had not been cut in the stage. But if it were cut, said Waldo, it would go down into the orchestra pit, rather than the undercroft of the stage proper. Why had he not been told earlier? demanded Powell. He wanted Merlin to appear as if by magic at that particular spot, downstage right, and Mr. Twentyman had been rehearsing for four weeks with that in mind. All right, said Waldo, he would have it cut, and it would mean reducing the size of the orchestra by five members. Here Dr. Dahl-Soot intervened, and the question was somehow resolved without bloodshed, and without the trapdoor.

“Perhaps I could come down from the flies on a wire,” suggested Mr. Twentyman. “I’ve done it before, you know.”

Oliver Twentyman had made himself popular with everybody in the theatre, without particularly exerting himself to do so. But his great age, and his charm, and above all his assumption that everyone wanted to please him, made slaves of the gofers (to whom he brought charming Belgian chocolates in pretty little packages), and convinced Gwen Larking that she was his champion and must shield him from all harm, and caused Waldo Harris to put a special reclining-chair in his dressing-room, as well as a little heater, in case there might be early autumn chill. In return Mr. Twentyman gave advice about how to pronounce English when singing, with Hans Hoizknecht as an eager pupil, and even Clara Intrepidi as an overhearer, rather than a committed listener. She was still dubious about a language with so many vowels.

Thus matters moved toward the final rehearsals, and a controlled, highly professional excitement rose.

The stage was still pretty much in the grip of the technicians, but time was found to accustom the actors to singing in the theatre. Not always at full strength, Darcourt found; sometimes they “marked”, which meant that they sang quietly, skipped their high notes or sang them an octave below pitch, and were altogether so intimate that they seemed determined to keep the music a secret. Watkin Bourke performed prodigies on an ancient upright piano that stood on the forestage; he was still playing from a full orchestral score, and showed great firmness in keeping Al Crane from snatching this for his own information. Gunilla, who had taken a powerful scunner to Al, was determined that he should not see the music at close range if she could avoid it, and Al whined to Powell that this was a hardship, but Powell was not to be moved. Al had as yet not succeeded in getting the copies he wanted, and was not happy when he was told that he might get something for himself once the opera was in performance.

There was great activity, too, on the part of the public relations people, who wanted tasty bits of gossip to send out to the press, which had not shown much interest in Arthur. The report from the box-office was discouraging; even the first night had not been sold out, and would have to be papered with passes. A few of the more learned critics, who had asked for scores to study, had not been pleased when told that none were available, as Dean Wintersen had forbade any public examination of the music until Schnak’s examiners had gone over it thoroughly. As the opening drew near, the report was that less than thirty-three per cent of the tickets for all performances had been sold. If Dr. Dahl-Soot was not concerned about this, the management of the Festival was disgruntled.