The Examiner.
March 24, 1816.
Miss O’Neill’s Lady Teazle at Covent-Garden Theatre appears to us to be a complete failure. It was not comic; it was not elegant; it was not easy; it was not dignified; it was not playful; it was not any thing that it ought to be. All that can be said of it is, that it was not tragedy. It seemed as if all the force and pathos which she displays in interesting situations had left her, but that not one spark of gaiety, one genuine expression of delight, had come in their stead. It was a piece of laboured heavy still-life. The only thing that had an air of fashion about her was the feather in her hat. It was not merely that she did not succeed as Miss O’Neill; it would have been a falling off in the most common-place actress who had ever done any thing tolerably. She gave to the character neither the complete finished air of fashionable indifference, which was the way in which Miss Farren played it, if we remember right, nor that mixture of artificial refinement and natural vivacity, which appears to be the true idea of the character (which however is not very well made out), but she seemed to have been thrust by some injudicious caprice of fortune, into a situation for which she was fitted neither by nature nor education. There was a perpetual affectation of the wit and the fine lady, with an evident consciousness of effort, a desire to please without any sense of pleasure. It was no better than awkward mimicry of the part, and more like a drawling imitation of Mrs. C. Kemble’s genteel comedy than any thing else we have seen. The concluding penitential speech was an absolute sermon. We neither liked her manner of repeating ‘Mimminee pimminee,’ nor of describing the lady who rides round the ring in Hyde-park, nor of chucking Sir Peter under the chin, which was a great deal too coarse and familiar. There was throughout an equal want of delicacy and spirit, of ease and effect, of nature and art. It was in general flat and insipid, and where any thing more was attempted, it was overcharged and unpleasant.
Fawcett’s Sir Peter Teazle was better than when we last saw it. He is an actor of much merit, but he has of late got into a strange way of slurring over his parts. Liston’s Sir Benjamin Backbite was not very successful. Charles Kemble played Charles Surface very delightfully.
Guy Mannering, or the Gipsey’s Prophecy, taken from the novel of that name, and brought out at Covent-Garden, is a very pleasing romantic drama. It is, we understand, from the pen of Mr. Terry, and reflects much credit on his taste and talents. The scenes between Miss Stephens, Miss Matthews, and Mr. Abbott, as Lucy Bertram, Julia Mannering, and Colonel Mannering, have a high degree of elegance and interest. Mrs. Egerton’s Meg Merrilees was equal in force and nature to her Miller’s Wife; and we cannot pay it a higher compliment. It makes the blood run cold. Mr. Higman played the chief Gipsey very well, and nothing could be better represented than the unfeeling, shuffling tricks and knavish impudence of the Gipsey Boy, by Master Williams. Liston’s Dominie Sampson was prodigious; his talents are prodigious. The appearance and the interest he gave to the part were quite patriarchal. The unconscious simplicity of the humour was exquisite; it will give us a better opinion of the Scotch Clergy, and almost of the Scotch nation (if that were possible) while we live.
MR. KEAN
The Examiner.
March 31, 1816.
A chasm has been produced in the amusements of Drury-Lane Theatre by the accident which has happened to Mr. Kean. He was to have played the Duke of Milan on Tuesday, but as he had not come to the Theatre at the time of the drawing up of the curtain, Mr. Rae came forward to propose another tragedy, Douglas. To this the audience did not assent, and wished to wait. Mr. Kean, however, not appearing, nor any tidings being heard of him, he was at length given up, and two farces substituted in his stead. Conjectures and rumours were afloat; and it was not till the next day that it was discovered that Mr. Kean having dined a few miles in the country, and returning at a very quick pace to keep his engagement at the Theatre, was thrown out of his gig, and had his arm dislocated, besides being stunned and very much bruised with the fall. On this accident a grave morning paper is pleased to be facetious. It observes that this is a very serious accident; that actors in general are liable to serious accidents; that the late Mr. Cooke used to meet with serious accidents; that it is a sad thing to be in the way of such accidents; and that it is to be hoped that Mr. Kean will meet with no more serious accidents. It is to be hoped that he will not—nor with any such profound observations upon them, if they should happen. Next to that spirit of bigotry which in a neighbouring country would deny actors Christian burial after death, we hate that cant of criticism, which slurs over their characters while living with a half-witted jest. Actors are accused as a profession of being extravagant and intemperate. While they are said to be so as a piece of common cant, they are likely to continue so. But there is a sentence in Shakespear which should be stuck as a label in the mouths of the beadles and whippers-in of morality: ‘The web of our life is of a mingled yarn: our virtues would be proud if our vices whipped them not, and our faults would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.’
With respect to the extravagance of actors, as a traditional character, it is not to be wondered at: they live from hand to mouth; they plunge from want into luxury; they have no means of making money breed, and all professions that do not live by turning money into money, or have not a certainty of accumulating it in the end by parsimony, spend it. Uncertain of the future, they make sure of the present moment. This is not unwise. Chilled with poverty, steeped in contempt, they sometimes pass into the sunshine of fortune, and are lifted to the very pinnacle of public favour, yet even there cannot calculate on the continuance of success, but are, ‘like the giddy sailor on the mast, ready with every blast to topple down into the fatal bowels of the deep!’ Besides, if the young enthusiast who is smitten with the stage, and with the public as a mistress, were naturally a close hunks, he would become or remain a city clerk, instead of turning player. Again, with respect to the habit of convivial indulgence, an actor, to be a good one, must have a great spirit of enjoyment in himself, strong impulses, strong passions, and a strong sense of pleasure, for it is his business to imitate the passions and to communicate pleasure to others. A man of genius is not a machine. The neglected actor may be excused if he drinks oblivion of his disappointments; the successful one, if he quaffs the applause of the world, and enjoys the friendship of those who are the friends of the favourites of fortune, in draughts of nectar. There is no path so steep as that of fame; no labour so hard as the pursuit of excellence. The intellectual excitement inseparable from those professions which call forth all our sensibility to pleasure and pain, requires some corresponding physical excitement to support our failure, and not a little to allay the ferment of the spirits attendant on success. If there is any tendency to dissipation beyond this in the profession of a player, it is owing to the state of public opinion, which paragraphs like the one we have alluded to are not calculated to reform; and players are only not so respectable as a profession as they might be, because their profession is not respected as it ought to be.