THE very successful issue of Mr. Irving's recent venture seems rather to discount a remark which some of us may have lately read in Punch, to the effect that "there was just one thing Shakespeare could not do, write a tolerable play for a nineteenth-century audience." Of course in considering this sentence, rather startling perhaps at first, one must have regard to two things that we are not intended to take quite seriously any expression of opinion in a paper that is avowedly nothing if not humorous; and again, that it is obviously not Punch's cue to be much impressed with tragedy, or to expatiate very feelingly on its beauties. Still, his verdict may be taken to represent, with more or less completeness, a considerable balance of English taste. Many people, as we all know-cultured and intelligent people while professing, doubtless in all honesty, to find in Shakespeare the great pleasure and solace of their studious hours, have yet been of opinion that he cuts but a dull figure on the stage. This opinion was rather widely held a few years ago, and the observation quoted from Punch, a final sentence pronounced ex cathedra after a careful revision of the matter, shows that it still holds its ground in certain quarters. On the other hand, Mr. Irving has not less conclusively proved, nor in this instance only, that there are a considerable number of people who think differently. It is tolerably clear that Shakespeare is no longer found to spell ruin in our theatres, as he was averred to spell it

who

some years ago by one spoke certainly with experience, but was himself perhaps not quite aware how many different ways there are in which the poet's own name may be spelled. Mr. Irving has evidently found the right way, or at least the way which we are at present agreed No. 261.-VOL. XLIV.

shall be right. And on this so many of us as are disposed to do so may surely congratulate ourselves without any suspicion of selfishness.

"Such and so various are the tastes of men." And when one remembers how very large London is, how bountifully supplied with theatres, how greatly of late years the stock of playgoers has increased, it really seems as though the rival muses of Punch and Shakespeare should find room to disport themselves without treading on each other's skirts. As the late Lord Lytton has pertinently remarked, when deprecating a too illiberal vein he found in Hazlitt's method of criticism, "no man if he would praise a racehorse thinks it necessary to abuse a lion." And surely, grateful as we all must be to Punch for his brilliant and untiring efforts to lighten "the weary load of human kind," it seems as though there should be other and more obvious ways of doing this than to point the finger of scorn at Shakespeare because he did not write farces for the nineteenth century.

Merely to say of a play that it is successful, stands for very little now when so many paths lie open to theatrical success. The relations between an actor and his audience have now grown so much more personal and intimate; we are so quick to merge the actor in the man, to approve our friendship rather than our judgment; that almost every theatre can rely on its own immediate circle of clients for at least a temporary measure of patronage and applause. Indeed, a theatre has only to be in the vogue, to contain one or two popular favourites, to command, as one may say, success without invariable reference to its present deserts. Hence, in assuming the almost universal favour that Othello has met with to be a tri

P

umphant refutation of Shakespeare's alleged inability to satisfy a modern audience, certain allowances have to be made. Mr. Irving's very great and sustained popularity, for example; Miss Terry's popularity; Mr. Booth's popularity, and a certain sense of national courtesy as well; the curiosity to see these two representative actors, as they may be styled, on the same stage; the inborn taste for comparison which animates every human breast, and is really so much less odious than is traditionally supposed-can indeed, when properly employed, be made of real and lasting value as well as the amusement of an hour: all these feelings, very natural and proper as they are, must be taken into account before we can really arrive at the share borne by the actual merit of the performance in the great sum of success which it has achieved. But when these deductions have been made-and they must be made if we would get to the heart of the matter, see what it really means, how much of permanent and true interest it has for us; if we would satisfy ourselves, in short, whether we have been doing anything more than

"Snatch a turbid inspiration From some transient earthly sun : when the last echo of applause has died from out our ears, and the glare of the footlights passed from off our eyes; when we sit down calmly to consider what it really is that we have gone out to see, then, and not till then, we find we may really take some comfort; that our much abused and derided theatre has really produced something to which, without vanity, we may point as a proof that this nineteenth century of ours, despite the jibes of Punch, is not wholly unworthy to enjoy the heritage of Shakespeare. Many of us can doubtless still remember how desperate a blow was struck at a great reputation when the stately eulogy pronounced by Macaulay on the various and splendid work of English literature that eulogy which most of us at the time read with such

a conscious glow of triumph, and accepted in such simple honesty was declared to be in truth both " vulgar" and "retarding." Self-conceit, we were then reminded, and the laziness coming from self-conceit, are the two great banes of humanity. It is therefore with the utmost trepidation that we hazard the doubt whether, even in the happiest days of the poetic drama, in the golden prime of our theatre, wheresoever that mystic age should be placed, this noble play can ever have been as a whole much more satisfactorily presented; more completely and intelligently placed upon the stage, with a better distribution of parts, or a more careful observance of detailof those details which, trivial as they may separately seem to careless eyes, are yet, as we are happily growing to see more and more clearly, of such inestimable value to the thorough perfecting of all theatric work.

Perhaps the first idea one gets from this Othello is how well, to use a cant term of the theatre, the part of Iago plays itself. The villainy of the man is so supreme and triumphant; he takes us into his confidence so unreservedly, flatters us with a sort of consciousness of intellectual superiority in not being as these others are, his dupes; he puts us on good terms with ourselves-establishes, as it were, a sort of chain of intelligence, a bond of sympathy. He is the great mastermind of the piece; he can sound them all, these Othellos, Roderigos, Cassios, "from the lowest note to the top of the compass," and all the while we are in his secret. Thus he claims our attention from the first by the most infallible of all charms, the charm of personal confidence; and having once got our ear, he deepens the impression, draws us yet closer to him by a mysterious fascination that has almost as much of admiration as of horror in it; a feeling, as Hazlitt rightly points out, akin to that which leads us always to read the accounts in the newspapers of dreadful fires and shocking murders, leads so many of us to frequent

com

executions (it is Hazlitt who speaks) and trials. We marvel at the genius who could create Othello, but for the man himself we really feel not much more perhaps than a half-familiar, half-contemptuous pity. We may shudder at his rage, we may weep at his agony; yet in our hearts the while we cannot but feel a touch of scorn for the man so easily gulled, as we wiser souls see him to be. But it is Iago himself who interests us, the very man; in his presence we forget Shakespeare for a time. Again, that part of him which he bears "in pliment extern," is so clear and obvious; his shrewd tongue, his rough honesty, his good fellowship; all these superficial points-superficial only as being on the surface could hardly fail to commend themselves, to go home to, the dullest comprehension. To master the text, and to deliver it in such manner as to be intelligible to the audience, and to impress the fact that it is intelligible to the speaker really if an actor did this, one might almost be content that he should do no more. Good Iagos and bad there are, of course, and always will be; but the bad can be bad, one thinks, only by comparison: a positively bad Iago seems almost an impossible thing; it is difficult to conceive any actor, the poorest and baldest, as altogether failing to interest in this character. Again, there are so many ways in which the character interests; there are so many points from which it may be viewed, so many different interpretations of it-different, that is, in degree-all possible evolutions of the text, and all, from their own point of view, interesting. Take, for example, the Iagos of Mr. Booth and Mr. Irving; no two presentments of the same character could well be more different, yet how interesting are both.

This character, as understood and presented by these two actors, very clearly marks the distinguishing quality of their respective styles. The American Iago, clear, cool and pre

cise, admirably thought out, never deviating a hairsbreadth from the preconceived plan; design and execution marching hand in hand with ordered step from the first scene to the last; a performance of marvellous balance and regularity, polished to the very finger-nail. The Englishman's, startling, picturesque, irregular, brilliant sometimes, sometimes less brilliant than bizarre, but always fresh and suggestive, always bearing that peculiar stamp of personality which has so often saved the actor in his sorest straits. Mr. Irving's performance one carries away with one and thinks about; Mr. Booth's, too, one thinks about-when reminded of it. Nevertheless, as a work of art, an artistic whole, self-contained and complete, to the latter's must, in our judgment, be assigned the palm. Mr. Irving's is marred throughout by one great fault, the fault which is so commonly reckoned to him as a virtue, from which indeed he has often contrived to extract virtue, but which, call it fault or virtue, yet remains one of the most dangerous qualities an actor can have a perpetual striving after something new. He is never content to do as others have done, to find the same meaning in words that others have found, to read human nature as others read it. It has been truly said of Mr. Irving that he is never commonplace; but it should also be remembered that this freedom from commonplace may sometimes be purchased at the expense of common sense. Merely to be unlike others is not necessarily to be superior to others, though undoubtedly this is a form of superiority very highly prized in these days. Some of Mr. Irving's best work, his most valuable work, as well as his most popular, has certainly been inspired by this quality; but no less certainly has it pricked him on not unfrequently to some very daring and extravagant flights. The more sober of his admirers have, of course, long ago discriminated these two phases: seen when and how he was original because

he had really originated some new point of the character he was portraying, brought into fresh light some feature of his author hitherto unrecognised or disregarded; and when he was original only in the form he gave to his inability to cope with the matter in hand. Take the soliloquies, for example, in this very character. No actor, or none at least with whose style we ourselves happen to be familiar, has ever delivered soliloquies in this manner before; no actor, one feels, but Mr. Irving would dare so to deliver them, with so supreme a defiance of all conventional rules. Other actors act them, declaim them, hurl them, so to speak, at our heads, as though arguing with us and not with their own conscience. But though in this instance, as in others, of which all who have ever seen the actor can doubtless recall one or more, this quality has proved of the greatest value to him, it has also sometimes proved of very doubtful value, sometimes even distinctly hurtful.

If we

take his Iago as a whole, the conception of the character, and the form given to the conception, we find not an "ancient," a poor soldier of fortune, but a splendid triumphant cavalier, wearing far costlier garments than his superior officer, and ruffling it so bravely, that in truth it were rather him than the gentle Desdemona Cassio should call "our great captain's captain." Cassio himself he throws completely in the shade, and stands on the same footing with Othello: he is always the dominant figure in the scene, the one whom the eye first singles out and rests on longest. How much of this arises from his idea of the character, how much from that fatal law of theatrical etiquette which ordains the first actor in the theatre to be the alpha and the omega of every play, it would be difficult to say; but the fact remains. The effect is fine, no doubt, sometimes very fine, yet we cannot but think it is a false effect. In Mr. Booth's Iago there is no touch of this; there the actor is always in proportion,

always in his proper place and perspective.

Mr. Irving has been greatly praised for sundry little "touches of nature," as they are somewhat recklessly called, with which he is in the habit of adorning and enlivening all his characters; little acts, gestures, movements, ments, postures, and changes of posture, such as no other actor ever employs, or would probably conceive the idea of employing. Sometimes these are very happy; answering their purpose most felicitously, really bringing out and marking the nature of the character and the circumstances of the scene. Sometimes they strike only as excrescences, as the offspring only of nervousness-a restlessness born of that unconquerable desire to be always doing something, and to be doing that something differently from every one else. Of this latter phase there are many instances in his Iago: he is never for an instant still, always playing with his cap, or his dress, or his moustachios, slapping Roderigo on the back, throwing his arm round his neck, walking here, leaning there, now sitting on a table, now leaning against a pillar. At first this perpetual movement no doubt strikes the eye and pleases the sense, gives an air of homeliness and nature to the character, removes it from the stage into real life, as it were; but after a time it wearies: before this paper is printed very possibly it has wearied Mr. Irving himself. Two instances seem particularly to have taken the public fancy; one when Mr. Irving, soliloquising, picks his teeth with his dagger and afterwards wipes it on his sleeve; the other where, while Cassio talks with Desdemona awaiting Othello's landing, Mr. Irving carelessly plucks and eats a bunch of grapes. Now of the first of these it is not in itself an elegant action, neither does it in any way assist the character, bring out any salient feature, or point any particular phrase; on the contrary, though it might be an action native enough to the leather-jerkined buff-booted

"ancient" one is accustomed to, it scarcely harmonises with this very splendid Iago. Of the second, though the action is easy and natural enough, yet how much less really natural to the character than Mr. Booth's still, respectful attitude, leaning against the sun-dial, alert to execute any command, seeming careless what goes on so long as he is ready when wanted, yet ever watching his prey with sly, sleepless vigilance. No doubt Mr. Irving greatly heightens by this behaviour the contrasts of this wonderful character; by thus emphasising and accentuating its ease, gaiety and natural freedom of manner, he deepens the tremendousness of its villainy. But these contrasts want no heightening, this villainy no deepening. Here no actor can hope to improve on Shakespeare, if he may ever hope to do so. Iago is no unnatural monster, no chaos of irreconcilable opposites; he is a man, and a natural man enough, if one looks carefully at his character, not as this actor or that may have conceived it, but as Shakespeare has drawn it-though of course the warranty for his conduct is greatly weakened by the unfortunate custom, apparently a law of our stage, of assigning Emilia to a lady old enough to be Desdemona's mother, nor scarcely likely to awaken jealousy in the most suspicious breast. This delight in violent and abnormal contrasts is one of the worst qualities of Mr. Irving's style. He has too little sense of proportion, too little skill in blending the lights and shades of his characters; with him there is no shade but the blackness of night, no light but the whiteness of the lily. Yet with all these deficiencies and many of them in a less interesting and instructive actor would be little worth notinghis Iago must always remain a singularly brilliant and picturesque performance, more striking to the eye than Mr. Booth's; at first more alluring to the sense, but less so, as we cannot but think, on reflection.

Iago, as we have said, there are so many ways of playing; so many sides from which his character may be viewed, from each of which something of value and interest may be extracted even by the least brilliant of actors. But with Othello this is not so. We have ventured to express our belief that almost any actor, if certain conditions were granted, could play Iago tolerably well; we will now venture further, and express a doubt whether any actor ever did or ever will play Othello entirely and completely well. We have all of us read, of course, of Edmund Kean in this character; of his passion and energy, the magnificent pathos with which he delivered certain passages, the beautiful apostrophe,

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Then, oh, farewell," &c, for instance, in which, according to Hazlitt, his voice "struck on the heart like the swelling notes of some divine music, like the sound of years of departed happiness." But the same critic, surely no ungenerous or cold one to Kean, complains that he was all passion and energy, "too uniformly on the verge of extravagance, too constantly on the rack." And he goes on, "This does very well in certain characters, as Zanga or Bajazet, where there is merely a physical passion, a boiling of the blood to be expressed, but it is not so in the lofty-minded and generous Moor." He missed too often in Kean, though glimpses of it he allows were to be caught, what he rightly marks as the true note of this magnificent work of human genius, "the noble tide of deep and sustained passion." It is true the late George Lewes, a very shrewd critic of the stage, as of most things, has praised Kean more roundly; but then he criticised, as he himself allows, from memory, very many years after Kean had left the scene of his

great triumphs, in those later days when we begin to

"hear the echoes through the mountains throng,

The winds come to us from the fields of sleep; "