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A View of the English Stage, Or, a Series of Dramatic Criticisms [repr. From Newspapers] Ed. by W.s. Jackson
A View of the English Stage Or a Series of Dramatic Criticisms Ed by Ws Jackson - repr. From Newspapers Author:William Hazlitt General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1906 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: MR. KEAN'S RICHARD.1 Drury Lane] October 9, 1814. We do not think Mr. Kean at all improved by his Irish expedition. As this is a point in which we feel a good deal of interest, both on Mr. Kean's account and our own, we shall state briefly our objections to some alterations in his mode of acting, which appear to us for the worse.2 His pauses are twice as long as they were, and the rapidity with which he hurries over other parts of the dialogue is twice as great as it was. In both these points, his style of acting always bordered on the very verge of extravagance; and we suspect it has at present passed the line. There are, no doubt, passages in which the pauses can hardly be too long, or too marked -- these must be, however, of rare occurrence, and it is in the finding out these exceptions to the general rule, and in daring to give them all their effect, that the genius of an actor discovers itself. But the most commonplace drawling monotony is not more mechanical or more offensive, than the converting these exceptions into a general rule, and making every sentence an alternation of dead pauses and rapid transitions.3 It is not in extremes that dramatic genius is shown, any more than skill in music consists in passing continually from the highest to the lowestnote. The quickness of familiar utterance with which Mr. Kean pronounced the anticipated doom of Stanley, " chop off his head,"' was quite ludicrous. Again, the manner in which, after his nephew said, "I fear no uncles dead,"2 he suddenly turned round, and answered, "And I hope none living, sir," was, we thought, quite out of character. The moti...« less