MR. KEMBLE’S PENRUDDOCK
| The Champion.] | [Nov. 20, 1814. |
Mr. Kemble lately appeared at this theatre in the character of Penruddock, and was received (not indeed with waving handkerchiefs, and laurel garlands thrown on the stage, but what is much better) with heart-felt approbation and silent tears. His delineation of the part is one of his most correct and interesting performances, and one of the most perfect on the modern stage. The deeply rooted, mild, pensive melancholy of the character, its embittered recollections and dignified benevolence, were given by Mr. Kemble with equal truth, elegance, and feeling. This admirable actor appeared to be the unfortunate, but amiable individual whom he represented; and the expression of the sentiments, the look, the tone of voice, exactly true to nature, struck a correspondent chord in every bosom.—The range of characters, in which Mr. Kemble shines, and is superior to every other actor, are those which consist in the developement of some one sentiment or exclusive passion. From a want of rapidity, of scope, and variety, he is often deficient in expressing the bustle and complication of different interests, nor does he possess the faculty of overpowering the mind by sudden and irresistible bursts of passion. But in giving the habitual workings of a predominant feeling, as in Penruddock, Coriolanus, and some others, where all the passions move round a central point, and have one master key, he stands unrivalled. In Penruddock, he broods over the recollection of disappointed hope, till it becomes a part of himself, it sinks deeper into his mind the longer he dwells upon it, and his whole person is moulded to the character. The weight of sentiment which oppresses him never seems suspended, the spring at his heart is never lightened, his regrets only become more profound as they become more durable. So in Coriolanus, he exhibits the ruling passion with the same continued firmness, he preserves the same haughty dignity of demeanour, the same energy of will, and unbending sternness of temper throughout. He is swayed by a single impulse. His tenaciousness of purpose is only irritated by opposition: he turns neither to the right nor to the left: but the vehemence with which he moves forward increases every instant, till it hurries him to the catastrophe. In Leontes, in the Winter’s Tale, the growing jealousy of the king, and the exclusive possession which it at length obtains of his mind, are marked in the finest manner, particularly where he exclaims—
‘Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh, a note infallible
Of breaking honesty? horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Hours minutes? the noon, midnight? and all eyes
Blind with the pin and web, but theirs; theirs only
That would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing?
Why then the world and all that’s in ‘t is nothing.
The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,
My wife is nothing, if this be nothing.’
In the course of this enumeration every proof tells harder, his conviction becomes more rivetted at every step of his progress, and at the end his mind is wound up to a frenzy of despair. In such characters, Mr. Kemble has no occasion to call in the resources of invention, or the tricks of the art; his excellence consists entirely in the increasing intensity with which he dwells on a given feeling or enforces a predominant passion. In Hamlet, on the contrary, Mr. Kemble unavoidably fails from a want of flexibility, or of that quick sensibility, which yields to every motive, and is borne away with every breath of fancy, which is distracted by the multiplicity of its reflections, and lost in its own purposes. There is a perpetual undulation of feeling in the character of Hamlet (though it must be confessed, much of this, which is the essence of the play, is left out on the stage), but in Mr. Kemble’s acting ‘there is no variableness nor shadow of turning.’ He plays it like a man in armour, with a determined inveteracy of purpose, in one undeviating strait line, which is as remote from the natural grace and easy susceptibility of the character, as the sharp angles and abrupt starts to produce an effect, which Mr. Kean introduces into it. Mr. Kean’s Hamlet is, in our opinion, as much too ‘splenetic and rash,’ as Mr. Kemble’s is too deliberate and formal. In Richard, Mr. Kemble has not that tempest and whirlwind of the passions, that life and spirit, and dazzling rapidity of motion, which, as it were, fills the stage, and burns in every part, which Mr. Kean displayed in it till he was worn out by the managers. Mr. Kean’s acting, in general, strongly reminds us of the lines of the poet, when he describes
‘The fiery soul that working out its way
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o’erinformed the tenement of clay.’
Mr. Kemble’s manner on the contrary has always something dry, hard and pedantic in it. ‘You shall relish him more in the scholar than the soldier.’ But his monotony does not fatigue, his formality does not displease, because there is always sense and feeling in what he does. The fineness of Mr. Kemble’s figure has perhaps led to that statue-like appearance which his acting is sometimes too apt to assume; as the diminutiveness of Mr. Kean’s person has probably forced him to bustle about too much, and to attempt to make up for the want of dignity of form by the violence and contrast of his attitudes. If Mr. Kemble were to remain in the same posture for half an hour, his figure would only produce admiration—if Mr. Kean were to stand still only for a moment, the contrary effect would be produced.
To return to Penruddock and the Wheel of Fortune. The only novelties were Miss Foote in Emily Tempest, and her lover, Mr. Farley, as Sir David Daw. The latter, who is a Welch Adonis of five-and-twenty, from the natural advantages of his person, and the artificial improvements which were added to it, was a very admirable likeness, on a reduced scale, of the Prince Regent. We do not know whether the burlesque was intended, but it had a laughable effect. We acknowledge that Mr. Farley is one of those persons whom we always welcome heartily when we see him. What with laughing at him and laughing with him, we hardly know a more comic personage. Miss Foote played and looked the part of Emily Tempest very naturally and very prettily, but without giving to the character either much interest or much elegance. Her voice is in itself as sweet as her person, and when she exerts it, she articulates with ease and clearness: but we should add, that she has a habit of tripping in her common speaking, that is, of dropping her voice so low, except where a particular emphasis is to be laid, as to make it difficult for the ear to follow the sense.