On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
" Remove thy sword , "Which thou dost brandish at my throat , and I will tell thee all .
But there are rougher points of attention for the actor , and none are such journeymen as to overlook or fail in them—attention to the plainly-marked outline of movement , and even of emphasis , however indispensable , is chiefly indispensable as a condition for something more ; and this something more is the complete expression jot the trains of unspoken feelings which connect the most opposite spoken passions . The pause longer or shorter —the face hidden , or averted—the eye alert—wanderingfixed , or abstracted—the suspended action—the lingering accent ; in short , the perfection of the actor ' s art must intimate —alone can intimate—the fine gradations—sudden revolutions of emotion which vindicate the nature of what the poet has set down . Herein consists the life , the glory of acting—the harmonising the whole series of the poet ' s words into one living expression of a consistent , intelligible , natural sequence of pshychological causes and effects . Every sentence which
Shakspeare has set down for Othello is natural to the character which Shakspeare conceived ; and the actor who cannot introduce a sentence naturally in his impersonation of the character , does not act the Othello of the poet . I confess I was no less astonished than grieved when I heard Kean deliver the speech of Othello to the Senate , with the allusion to
66 The cannibals that do each other eat , The anthropophagi , and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders
*"—omitted . I cannot understand how this obviously p layful allusion to an occasional exaggeration in his wooing-tales of romantic adventure could be omitted by any actor who did not
misconceive the spirit in which the whole speech is delivered . Macready professed to restore Lear , and omitted the Fool . It may be that no actor equal to the Fool was to be had—perhaps it was omitted " by particular desire / ' as other parts have been ; perhaps Mr Macready , equal , as I am convinced he is , to the scenes of Lear with the Fool , mistrusted—and
perhaps mistrusted justly—the patience or taste of the audiencebut the play , with this omission , should not have been put forth as Shakspeare restored ; it was , after all , only late demolished . Such omissions are as bad as additions : the breadth of the scene is curtailed—narrowed—tamed down—and every
sentence partially loses effect—the play is stripped naked to the tery story—the actors are led to confide in the infer * < ptogress of the narrative for sustaining interest fend attention «¦ -
Untitled Article
Stage-PrGfoutiations of Shakspeare . 625
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 625, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/37/
-