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increasingly important pictures from other popular novels and plays.
Gladys Sylvani was our very popular leading lady all through 191 1 and for the two or three following years. She frequently appeared with Alec Worcester or with Hay Plumb in films of what was then the considerable length of over a thousand feet, but there is little use in quoting titles which must of necessity be quite meaningless now that the films themselves are forgotten.
There was a curiously interesting adaptation of the cinematograph to the legitimate theatre which was introduced about this time by a man named Messter, who called it 'Stereoplastics.' It was an ingenious combination of the old 'Pepper's Ghost' idea with films instead of living actors. In the 'Pepper's Ghost' illusion, as everybody knows, a very large sheet of glass was stretched across the stage at an angle so that it would reflect a white-robed actress standing in the wings. She would appear to the audience as if she were standing in the middle of the stage. The crux of the illusion was that the 'ghost' would be invisible until a bright light was shone upon the figure in the wings and would gradually fade away again when the light was slowly extinguished.
In the 'Stereoplastic' illusion the white figure in the wings was replaced by a sheet upon which a picture could be thrown from a projector out of sight on the opposite side of the stage. Both lantern and screen were invisible to the audience, until the specially devised film was thrown upon the screen, when the figure or figures appeared in the centre of the stage among the real people and the coloured scenery and furniture. There was no trace of the screen and the figures certainly looked very round and solid; or they could be made more transparent and ghost-like by reducing the brilliance of the light in the projector.
We had quite a lot of fun in the making of these special films for which we had to follow very carefully the instructions which were given to us. The actors had to be clothed entirely in white and have their faces and hands whitened too, and they had to be photographed against a very dark background of black velvet. The films were so processed that the figure was very white and clear and the surroundings so black and dense that no trace of light could get through and make any part of the screen even faintly visible as 2l screen.
The show was put on at the Scala Theatre in London where it was shown for several weeks. I do not remember that it attracted any marked attention. It suffered, I suspect, from the usual fate
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