KEAN’S MACBETH
| The Times.] | [October 21, 1817. |
Drury-Lane Theatre.
Macbeth (with Matthew Lock’s music) was played here last night. Mr. Kean was Macbeth, Miss Campbell Lady Macbeth. We never saw the former to such advantage in the part. Mr. Kean’s Macbeth did not use to be a great favourite with us, except in the murder scene: 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 a 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.