THE TAMING OF THE SHREW AND L’AVARE
| The Examiner.] | [May 18, 1828. |
Drury Lane.
The Taming of the Shrew was revived here on Wednesday, with the original words and additional songs. We however missed Christopher Sly, that supreme dramatic critic, who should have sat in lordly judgment on the piece, and given a drunken relief to it. This representing of a play within a play (of which Shakspeare was fond) produces an agreeable theatrical perspective—it is like painting a picture in a picture—and intimates pointedly enough that all are but shadows, the pageants of a dream. We also missed Mr. Liston in this part; for we understand he has some good quips and crotchets about it. Unless we saw him, we cannot pretend to say how he would do it; for we consider Mr. Liston in the light of an author rather than of an actor, and he makes his best parts out of his own head or face, in a sort of brown study, with very little reference to the text. He has nevertheless more comic humour oozing out of his features and person than any other actor in our remembrance, or than we have any positive evidence of since the time of Hogarth. No one is stultified, no one is mystified like him—no one is so deep in absurdity, no one so full of vacancy; no one puzzles so over a doubt, or goes the whole length of an extravagance like him—no one chuckles so over his own conceit, or is so dismayed at finding his mistake:—the genius of folly spreads its shining gloss over his face, tickles his nose, laughs in his eyes, makes his teeth chatter in his head, or draws up every muscle into a look of indescribable dulness, or freezes his whole person into a lump of ice (as in Lubin Log) or relaxes it into the very thaw and dissolution of all common sense (as in his Lord Grizzle). Munden’s acting (which many prefer, and in this number may be included Mr. Liston himself) was external, overdone, and aimed at the galleries—it was a sort of prodigious and inspired face-making—Liston’s humour bubbles up of itself, and runs over from the mere fulness of the conception. If he does not go out of himself, he looks into himself, and ruminates on the idea of the idle, the quaint, and the absurd, till it does his heart good within him, and makes ‘the lungs of others crow like chanticleer.’ Munden’s expressions, if they could have been taken off on the spot, would have made a capital set of grotesque masks: Liston’s would make a succession of original comic sketches, as rich as they are true:—Mr. Wilkie failed in attempting one of them—his pencil was not oily and unctuous enough. We have seen many better comedians, that is, better imitators of existing or supposed characters and manners—such as Emery, Little Simmons, Dowton, and others—we know no other actor who has such a fund of drollery in himself, or that makes one laugh in the same hearty unrestrained manner, free from all care or controul, that we do with Sancho Panza or Parson Adams. We have heard a story of Mr. Liston being prevented by some accident from attending his professional duties, and wrapping himself up in a flannel gown and heart’s-content over a winter fire, to read our good old English novelists for a fortnight together. What fine marginal notes his face would make! Which would he enjoy most, the blanket falling and discovering philosopher Square behind it, or the drawing up of the curtain and the broad laugh of the pit? We will answer that question for him. The meanest apprentice that sees a play for the first time from the gallery, has more pleasure than the most admired actor that ever trod the stage: there is more satisfaction in reading one page of a sterling author with good faith and good will, than the writer had in the composition or even the success of all his works put together. The admiration we bestow on others comes from the heart; but never returns back to it. Vanity closes up the avenues, or envy poisons it. This digression is too long: without sometimes going out of our way, we should hardly get to the end of our task.—The revival, on the whole, went off pleasantly, though the acting was not remarkably good, nor the music by any means enlivening. Jaques’s recommendation to Amiens—‘Warble, warble,’—seems to be the device of most modern composers, who think that, if they string a set of unmeaning notes together, it must be heavenly harmony. ’Tis pitiful. We are sick to death of this interpolated sing-song; nor do we think it much mended by proceeding from the mouth of Mr. Braham, who is in such cases a piece of operatic fleecy hosiery. He is a walking woolsack:—‘And when the bag was opened, the voice began to sing,’ &c. We may be wrong in this matter, and speak under correction of better judges; but we confess that the everlasting monotonous alternation of the thunder of the spheres and the softness of nightingales, of the notes of the trumpet and the lute, the forked lightning and gentle moon-beams, Mr. Braham’s thick-set person, infantine gestures and dying cadences, all together throw us into a fit of despondency. Miss Fanny Ayton’s shrill voice and acute features did not serve to dispel our chagrin. The rest of the piece was tolerably cast. Wallack was the hero of it, who does not want for spirit or confidence; and a man’s good opinion of himself is always half-way towards deserving it, and obtaining that of others. Cooper did not play his pretended master well: he is too grave and straight forward an actor for these sort of sudden shifts and doubtful subterfuges. The best-done scene was the quarrel between Russell as the tailor, and Harley as Petruchio’s man, about the gown and cap. The quaint antique humour was happily hit off, and studiously dallied with, so as not to slur it over, but to bring it out. Some fastidious critics may object to the puerile conceit and tenuity of meaning that pleased our ancestors in such idle squabbles—we think we could cite graver polemics to match it in shabby excuses and verbal trifling in the present day. The old-fashioned dresses recalled the image of former times; and the scenery that of places, which can never grow old. The last scene, in which the brides are sent for and brought in, had an excellent effect; and the second representation was announced with every sign of satisfaction. It may not be improper to add here, that the Taming of the Shrew is one of the pieces that have been transplanted (not without a good deal of pruning) to the French stage, and that Mademoiselle Mars plays the part of Katharine with equal spirit and success.
(French Play.)
M. Perlet took the Avare for his benefit at this theatre last week. We are sorry we are about to lose this excellent actor, who has given us much pleasure and instruction. Au revoir. We saw him only in the latter part of Moliere’s Miser: his thinness, his dress, and the keys at his girdle fitted the character exactly. It was chiefly in the scenes where he runs mad at losing his casket of gold, or seizes on Anselme as the father of the supposed robber to demand restitution of him, that the ruling passion and the greater actor broke out. In the first of these scenes particularly, where he catches hold of his own arm, thinking to arrest the thief, he shews all the rage and phrensy of the most tragic vehemence; and in throwing himself exhausted on the ground, bewailing his hard hap, and appealing to the pity of an imaginary audience, whom his despair conjures up, and then lashing himself up to impatience and fury again, proves his entire acquaintance with the ebb and flow, the risings and sinkings of the human heart. These particular passages appeared to us, however, like patches or excrescences on the general texture of the performance (perhaps they are so in the play itself, which is not one of Moliere’s best). If we may hazard a conjecture on a subject on which we do not feel altogether at home, we should say that M. Perlet’s Miser was in its ordinary aspect rather the serving-man in a half-famished house, than a personification of the demon of selfishness, fretfulness, and avarice. It was hard and indifferent—not gloating enough, not morbid enough, not restless and harassed enough. Farther, we suspect there is this fault in his general acting and in French comedy: we grant it is not gross; is it not, on the other hand, too slight and evanescent? They charge us with over-doing; are they not then liable to under-do, and fall short of the mark? If there is such a thing as caricature, there is also an antithesis to it, and not only a danger of loading a character to excess, but of giving a profile or section of it for the whole, and not taking all the licence that truth and nature gives. We are dreadfully afraid of being misled by national prejudices; but (that being premised) we cannot but add our conviction that M. Perlet’s acting, with all its purity, propriety, and spirit, wants something of richness and breadth.—The little piece which followed the Avare, Ninette à la cour, was delightful both in itself and as giving Mademoiselle Fanny Vertpres an opportunity to display her mignon figure and provoking ways. There seem to be two styles of female coquetry in France, extreme flutter and vivacity, or perfect calmness and self-possession. The one is set in motion by everything; the other is put out of its way by nothing. Miss Fanny Vertpres is of the latter class. With great presence of mind and ready wit, she joins to the symmetry the apparent coolness and indifference of a marble statue. She takes everything in good part, and slides into a number of ticklish adventures and situations with all the ease imaginable. She is only troubled at being laughed at—a misfortune against which no French patience is proof. The scenes behind the looking-glass and behind her fan with her rustic lover (Laporte), whom she beguiles in an enchanting feigned voice (prettier even than her own) are quite delightful, and dispose one to believe that comedy has not yet exhausted all its precious stores. Mademoiselle St. Ange played the Countess with all her country’s ease and grace. Monsieur Laporte strikes us as a confirmation of the remarks we have made above on French comedy, by the very circumstance of his being an exception to them. There is nothing automatic in his manner. He not only utters a jest, but he enjoys it too—not that he forces it upon us either, except by the gentle violence of sympathy. There is (so to speak) an atmosphere of humour about him, which reflects the immediate object with kindly warmth and lustre. His acting both in Maître Jacques and in the after-piece evinced that easy play of feeling, that transition from grave to gay, that mixture of wit and folly, those natural varieties of laughter and tears, which mark the master in his art and the genuine son of Momus.
We dropped in at Covent Garden to see Mr. Warde in the Seraglio and Charles Kemble in Charles the Second, who seems really born for the character, and whose fine person and accomplishments are thrown away in these degenerate days. Mr. Power makes a very passable Irish Rochester: but the wit and the rake had defects enough of his own to answer for, without having the brogue added to them. The same fault may be found with Mr. Warde, who would make a very respectable actor in the middle walk of tragedy, could he but controul his voice within the compass of the four seas.