of the house. We should suppose that more than half the number of persons were compelled to return without gaining admittance. We succeeded in gaining a seat in one of the back-boxes, and saw this wonderful performance at a distance, and consequently at a disadvantage. Though the distance of place is a disadvantage to a performance like Mrs. Siddons's Lady Macbeth, we question whether the distance of time at which we have formerly seen it is any. It is nearly twenty years since we first saw her in this character, and certainly the impression which we have still left on our minds from that first exhibition, is stronger than the one we received the other evening. The sublimity of Mrs. Siddons's acting is such, that the first impulse which it gives to the mind can never wear out, and we doubt whether this original and paramount impression is not weakened, rather than strengthened, by subsequent repetition. We do not read the tragedy of The Robbers twice; if we have seen Mrs. Siddons in Lady Macbeth only once, it is enough. The impression is stamped there for ever, and any afterexperiments and critical inquiries only serve to fritter away and tamper with the sacredness of the early recollection. We see into the details of the character, its minute excellencies or defects, but the great masses, the gigantic proportions, are in some degree lost upon us by custom and familiarity. It is the first blow that staggers us; by gaining time we recover our self-possession. Mrs. Siddons's Lady Macbeth is little less appalling in its effects than the apparition of a preternatural being; but if we were accustomed to see a preternatural being constantly, our astonishment would by degrees diminish. We do not know whether it is owing to the cause here stated, or to a falling-off in Mrs. Siddons's acting, but we certainly thought her performance the other night inferior to what it used to be. She speaks too slow, and her manner 1 An English translation of Schiller's play by A. F. Tytler, afterwards Lord Woodhouselee, was published in 1792. has not that decided, sweeping majesty, which used to characterize her as the Muse of Tragedy herself. Something of apparent indecision is perhaps attributable to the circumstance of her only acting at present on particular occasions. An actress who appears only once a year cannot play so well as if she was in the habit of acting once a week. We therefore wish Mrs. Siddons would either return to the stage, or retire from it altogether. By her present uncertain wavering between public and private life, she may diminish her reputation, while she can add nothing to it. MR. MAYWOOD'S SHYLOCK. Drury-Lane [September 26, 1817]. MR. MAYWOOD, from the Theatre Royal Glasgow, of whom report had spoken highly, and we think not undeservedly so, appeared here in the part of Shylock.' He was received throughout with very great applause; nor was there any part of his performance at which the slightest disapprobation was expressed. His figure is rather short; his face, though not regularly formed, expressive; his voice full, and capable of great depth of intonation; his attitudes firm and well conceived. [The use which he makes of his hands (a part of the human body which players are more at a loss to know what to do with than any others) is too constant, and too uniformly the same.] The most spirited scene, we thought, was that in which Tubal brings him information of Antonio's losses and impending ruin, and of his daughter's waste of his money. His exclamation, "Thank God! thank God!" 1 Robert Campbell Maywood (1790-1856) made his first appearance at Drury Lane, in The Merchant of Venice, September 25, 1817. 2 Merchant of Venice, 111, i. on hearing of the shipwreck, was as animated as any thing we ever heard. In the last scene, the glare of malignity with which he eyed Antonio after his defeated revenge recoils upon his own head,' was truly terrific. Upon the whole, we consider this gentleman as an acquisition to the tragic strength of the theatre; and are persuaded that what seemed the principal defect in his performance-an occasional want of decision of tone and firmness of action—was attributable only to that diffidence which is natural to a young actor on his first appearance before a London audience, in a part of so much prominence, and which has been so ably filled of late. MR. KEMBLE'S RETIREMENT. Covent Garden, June 25, 1817. MR. KEMBLE took his leave of the Stage on Monday night,2 in the character of Coriolanus. On his first coming forward to pronounce his Farewell Address, he was received with a shout like thunder: on his retiring after it, the applause was long before it subsided entirely away. There is something in these partings with old public favourites exceedingly affecting. They teach us the shortness of human life, and the vanity of human pleasures. Our associations of admiration and delight with theatrical performers, are among our earliest recollections-among our last regrets. They are links that connect the beginning and the end of life together; their bright and giddy career of popularity measures the arch that spans our brief existence. It is near twenty years ago since we first saw Mr. Kemble in the same char 1 Merchant of Venice, IV, i. 2 Coriolanus was performed for Kemble's farewell, June 23, 1817. He first acted this part at Drury Lane, February 7, 1789. acter-yet how short the interval seems! The impression appears as distinct as if it were of yesterday. In fact, intellectual objects, in proportion as they are lasting, may be said to shorten life. Time has no effect upon them. The petty and the personal, that which appeals to our senses and our interests, is by degrees forgotten, and fades away into the distant obscurity of the past. The grand and the ideal, that which appeals to the imagination, can only perish with it, and remains with us, unimpaired in its lofty abstraction, from youth to age; as, wherever we go, we still see the same heavenly bodies shining over our heads! We forget numberless things that have happened to ourselves, one generation of follies after another; but not the first time of our seeing Mr. Kemble, nor shall we easily forget the last! Coriolanus, the character in which he took his leave of the Stage, was one of the first in which we remember to have seen him; and it was one in which we were not sorry to part with him, for we wished to see him appear like himself to the last. Nor was he wanting to himself on this occasion: he played the part as well as he ever did-with as much freshness and vigour. There was no abatement of spirit and energy-none of grace and dignity: his look, his action, his expression of the character, were the same as they ever were: they could not be finer. It is mere cant to say that Mr. Kemble has quite fallen off of late-that he is not what he was: he may have fallen off in the opinion of some jealous admirers, because he is no longer in exclusive possession of the Stage: but in himself he has not fallen off a jot. Why then do we approve of his retiring? Because we do not wish him to wait till it is necessary for him to retire. On the last evening he displayed the same excellences, and gave the same prominence to the very same passages, that he used to do. We might refer to his manner of doing obeisance to his mother in the triumphal procession in the second act,1 and to the scene with Aufidius in the last act," Coriolanus, II, i, 186-8. 2 Ibid., v, vi. as among the most striking instances. The action with which he accompanied the proud taunt to Aufidius— "Like an eagle in a dove-cote, I Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli; gave double force and beauty to the image. Again, where he waits for the coming of Aufidius in his rival's house,2 he stood at the foot of the statue of Mars, himself another Mars! In the reconciliation scene with his mother, which is the finest in the play, he was not equally impressive. Perhaps this was not the fault of Mr. Kemble, but of the stage itself, which can hardly do justice to such thoughts and sentiments as here occur: "My mother bows: As if Olympus to a mole-hill should Mr. Kemble's voice seemed to faint and stagger, to be strained and cracked, under the weight of this majestic image: but, indeed, we know of no tones deep or full enough to bear along the swelling tide of sentiment it conveys; nor can we conceive any thing in outward form to answer to it, except when Mrs. Siddons played the part of Volumnia. 5 We may on this occasion be expected to say a few words on the general merits of Mr. Kemble as an actor, and on the principal characters he performed; in doing which, we shall "Nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice." 6 7 It has always appeared to us, that the range of characters 1 Coriolanus, V, vi, 115-7. 3 Ibid., v, iii. 2 Ibid., IV, V. 4 Ibid., v, iii, 29-31. 5 At the revival of Coriolanus, February 7, 1789. 6 Othello, v, ii, 342-3. 7 From here to the end of the paragraph on p. 330 is copied, with * very slight alterations and some additions, from The Champion for November 20, 1814. |