did not use to be a great favourite with us, except in the murderscene: but he last night, we thought, lifted the general character to almost an equality with this single scene. At least, he played the whole in a style of boldness and grandeur which we have not seen before. He was proud and lion-hearted, and lacked fear.' A thousand hearts seemed swelling in his bosom. His voice rolled from the bottom of his breast like thunder, and his eye flashed scorching flame. Instead of going back (as some cunning critics who have been peeping out of their cells at him ever since he began his career, to watch for his first failure, and to fall upon him magnanimously at a disadvantage, have been predicting), he advances even beyond himself with manly steps and an heroic spirit. In the banquet-scene he was particularly excellent; and called forth, with complete effect, those deep tones of nature and passion, recoiling upon and bursting with a convulsive movement from the heart, which are his very best and surest resource, though he has as yet made the least use of them. Let him go on, and open all the sluices of passion in his breast which are yet unlocked. He has done much: let him do as much more, by giving as much depth of internal emotion (where it is required) as he has done of external vehemence, by adding stateliness and a measured march to infinite force and truth, that he may be the greatest poet, as he unquestionably is the greatest prose-actor of the stage. When we speak of him as deficient in these qualities, we only do so in comparison with Mrs. Siddons: it would be a mockery both of him and the public to compare him with any one else. But she had something of divine about her which Mr. Kean has not; he in general only shows us the utmost force of what is human. Of Miss Campbell's Lady Macbeth we are almost afraid to speak, because we cannot speak favourably of it; yet a failure in this part is by no means decisive against the general merits of an actress. But she was altogether too tame and drawling for Lady Macbeth; and some attempts at originality failed of effect from the timidity with which they were executed. KEAN'S OTHELLO The Times.] [October 27, 1817. DRURY-LANE THEATRE. OTHELLO was played here on Saturday to a crowded house. There were two new appearances-Mr. Maywood as Iago, and a young lady as Desdemona. The name of this young debutante is not announced; but her reception was exceedingly flattering. Her face is handsome, her person elegant, her voice sweet, and her general deportment graceful and easy. There was also a considerable portion of tenderness and delicacy of feeling in several of the passages; but perhaps less than the character would bear. The only faults which we think it necessary to mention in her performance were, a too continual movement of the hands up and down, and sometimes a monotonous cadence in the recitation of the blank verse. Mr. Maywood's Iago had some of the faults which we have noticed in his former characters; but in the most trying scenes in the third act with Othello, we thought him exceedingly happy and successful. His conception was just, and his execution effective. There was a cold stillness in his manner which was more frightful than the expression of the most inveterate malignity. He seemed to crawl and watch for his prey like the spider, instead of darting upon it like the serpent. In the commencement of the part his timidity appeared to prevent him from doing justice to his intention, and once or twice his voice grew loud and unmanageable, so as to excite some marks of disapprobation. Mr. Kean's Othello is, we suppose, the finest piece of acting in the world. It is impossible either to describe or praise it adequately. We have never seen any actor so wrought upon, so 'perplexed in the extreme.' The energy of passion, as it expresses itself in action, is not the most terrific part; it is agony of his soul, showing itself in looks and tones of voice. In one part, where he listens in dumb despair to the fiend-like insinuations of lago, he presented the very face, the marble aspect of Dante's Count Ugolino. On his fixed eyelids Horror sat plumed.' In another part, where a gleam of hope or of tenderness returns to subdue the tumult of his passions, his voice broke in faltering accents from his over-charged breast. His lips might be said less to utter words, than to bleed drops of blood gushing from his heart. An instance of this was in his pronunciation of the line 'Of one that loved not wisely but too well.' The whole of this last speech was indeed given with exquisite force and beauty. We only object to the virulence with which he delivers the last line, and with which he stabs himself—a virulence which Othello would neither feel against himself at that moment, nor against the turbaned Turk (whom he had slain) at such a distance of time. His exclamation on seeing his wife, I cannot think but Desdemona's honest,' was the glorious triumph of exceeding love; a thought flashing conviction on his mind, and irradiating his countenance with joy, like sudden sunshine. In fact, almost every scene or sentence in this extraordinary exhibition is a masterpiece of natural passion. The convulsed motion of the hands, and the involuntary swellings of the veins of the forehead in some of the most painful situations, should not only suggest topics of critical panegyric, but might furnish studies to the painter or anatomist. KEAN AND MISS O'NEILL The Times] [December 2, 1817. COVENT-GARDEN THEATRE. THE tragedy of Venice Preserved was acted here last night to rather an empty house. Mr. Young's Pierre is one of his very best and most spirited performances. Mr. C. Kemble did to the character of Jaffier all the justice it deserves. But the great attraction of this piece, as it is at present acted, is Miss O'Neill's Belvidera. In this, however, we think her less excellent than on her first appearance in it. Her pathos is less simple, less touching, and her action more outrageous and violent. Perhaps the reason of this change may be, that, acting in such parts from an impulse of real sympathy with the heroine, as she repeats the character, her immediate interest in it becomes gradually diminished, and she is compelled to make up for the want of genuine feeling by the external vehemence of her manner. Be this as it may, she at present carries this violence of manner to the utmost pitch at which it can be borne. Her screams almost torture the ear, her looks almost petrify the sight. It is time that she should return to her first style of acting, which did not 'o'erstep the modesty of nature.' We speak thus of her from a sense of justice, and of respect, not of contempt, for her powers: for we think she owes it to those powers not to abuse them. As Belvidera is one of her most prominent characters, we shall take this opportunity to sum up in a few words our opinion of her general merit as a tragic actress; and perhaps we shall be able to do this best by pointing out the difference between her and another celebrated performer of the day. Mr. Kean affects the audience from the force of passion rather than of sentiment, or subsides into the pathetic after the violence of action, but seldom rises into it from the depth of natural feeling. In this respect, he presents almost a direct contrast to Miss O'Neill. Her energy appears to rise out of her sensibility: distress takes possession of, and overwhelms, her faculties: she triumphs in her weakness, and vanquishes by yielding. Mr. Kean is chiefly great in the conflict of passions, and resistance to his fate-in the opposition of his will to circumstances-in the keen excitement of his understanding. It is not without some reluctance, and after a good deal of reflection, that we should say, that the finest parts of his acting are superior to the finest parts of hers for instance, to her parting with Jaffier in Belvidera,—to her terror and joy in meeting with Biron in Isabella,―to the death-scene in the same character,—and to the scene in the prison with her husband as Mrs. Beverley. Her acting is more correct, equable, and faultless throughout than Mr. Kean's, and it is also quite as overpowering at the time, in the most impassioned parts; but it does not leave the same impression on the mind afterwards. It adds little to the stock of our ideas, or to our materials for reflection, but passes away with the momentary illusion of the scene. And this difference of effect perhaps arises from the difference of the parts they have to sustain on the stage. In the female characters which Miss O'Neill plays, the distress is in a great measure physical and involuntary, or such as is common to every woman in similar circumstances. She abandons herself to the impulses of grief or tenderness, and revels in the excess of an uncontrollable affliction. She can call to her aid with perfect propriety and the greatest effect, all the weaknesses of her sex; tears, sighs, convulsive sobs, shrieks, death-like stupefaction, and laughter more terrible than all: but it is not the same in the parts which Mr. Kean has to act. There must here be a manly fortitude, as well as a natural sensibility. There must be a restraint constantly put upon the feelings by the understanding and the will. He must in part be as one in suffering all, who suffers nothing.' He cannot give way entirely to his situation or his feelings, but must endeavour to become master of them and of himself. This, in our conception, must make it more easy to give the utmost effect and interest to female characters on the stage, by rendering the expression of the passion more simple, obvious, and natural; and must also make them less rememberable afterwards, by leaving less scope for the exercise of intellect, and for the distinct and complicated reaction of the character upon circumstances. At least, we can only account in some such way for the different impression which the acting of these two admired performers makes on our minds, when we see or when we think of them. As critics, we particularly feel this. Mr. Kean affords a never-failing source of observation and discussion: we can only praise or blame Miss O'Neill. The peculiarity and the strong hold of Mrs. Siddons's acting was, that she in a wonderful degree united both the extremes of excellence here spoken of, that is, the natural frailties of passion, or its inarticulate and involuntary expression, with a commanding strength of intellect, and the loftiest flights of imagination. Her person could also endure more violence of action than Miss O'Neill's; whose tender frame is hardly able to abide the beating of so strong a passion,' as she often has to assume, and whose fair face is injured by the least distortion. THE HONEY MOON The Times.] [December 3, 1817, DRURY-LANE THEATRE. THE favourite comedy of the Honey Moon was performed here last night; the part of the Duke by Mr. H. Johnston. Upon the whole he acquitted himself well in it, with spirit and effect. More than that the character does not require; and it would be hard if the critic required of the actor what the poet has not clearly and intelligibly exacted from him. When, indeed, an accomplished performer, who happens to be a man of genius, lends additional graces to a character, and places it in a brilliant light of his own, we are bound to thank him: when he merely gives what is set down for him' with force and fidelity, we are bound to be content. Mr. Johnston, we thought, sometimes too coarse, and sometimes too sarcastic; but in this sort of assumption of character, it is hard to say exactly how far the habitual manners and sentiments are to modify and appear through those which are put on to answer the purpose of the moment. In this species of the mock-heroic, which is a sort of equivocal mixture of comedy and tragedy, half pompous and half playful, Elliston, who was the first Duke Aranza, excelled all those who have succeeded him. Plautus was too light, Seneca was too heavy for him.' He just aspired to something above comedy, he just fell short of tragedy; but he hit the stage between wind and water. Mr. H. Johnston's energy is more fierce, his irony more virulent but still he moved, and looked, and spoke, if not like a lord, like a very lordly husband, and gave the essential interest to the part. He danced much at his ease, and recited the speech in which the Duke describes his idea of what his wife's dress should be, with propriety and feeling. Knight's countryman was admirable: his hysteric laughter at the dispute between his host and hostess, and his sheepish confusion when discovered, were equally perfect. His wonder at the manner in which Johnston rates his wife was ecstatic: 'And near him sat ecstatic Wonder, Listening the hoarse applauding thunder.' His jaws relaxed to their utmost expansion, and his nose grew sharp as a pen.' Miss Kelly was too pert and forward, and too much like my lady's chambermaid. Nor can we speak in praise of Mrs. Davison's Juliana. She pouts, flounces, and lumbers about the stage strangely. Mr. Harley did the Mock Duke well; he seemed like Sancho Panza in his government. The Honey Moon |