University of Virginia Library

A FEW OF THE INCONVENIENCES OF SEEING
SHAKSPEARE ACTED.

In the mass of miscellaneous reading that is constantly
meeting the eye and passing from the memory,
you occasionally meet with a remark or odd
saying of an adhesive quality—like a burr “it will
stick.” It is long ago since the following came in
my way; so long, indeed, that I have forgotten the
precise form of words in which the meaning was
couched, but the purport of the sentence was—
“that Shakspeare lost by representation in the same
proportion that others gained by it;—that the one
was like a spruce apprentice set off by his Sunday
clothes—the other like Apollo tricked out by a tailor.”
I dare say the same thought has struck many
a man after reading or seeing Shakspeare, and been
illustrated by many men in many modes before
this time; still, let the reapers and gleaners go ever
so carefully over the field, there are always some
few stray ears to be picked up by a straggler—
patches, remnants of the bounteous harvest that

has already been gathered in by the first in the
field. Nevertheless, that is no good reason why a
poor plodder in the stubble should be discouraged.
Let him gather together as he best may what others
have passed by, and see that it be sound and wholesome—neither
blighted nor mildewed; let those
laugh that have little better to do at his unostentatious
handful.

In speaking of the inconveniences of seeing
Shakspeare acted, let us pass by, in quiet resignation,
the more purely imaginative of his plays—his
“Tempest,” and “Midsummer Night's Dream.”
These wild and delicate pieces of fancy were never
intended for the hard handling and business calculations
of stage managers and their underlings. A
summer's day would be all too short to detail the
strange wrong, the mutilation, the degradation they
suffer on the stage. Their delicious poetry should
be for the hours of privacy alone; and even then,
a man should not trust himself to read some of the
passages in the latter play (or dream) aloud; they
are of too fine a texture for the harsh human voice,
and should be imbibed and conveyed to the senses
by the eye alone. But to hear them in a theatre!
To have them remorselessly bellowed forth from
the foot-lamps by the lumps of clay who do
the scavenger work of the drama, is absolutely

terrible! It is worse than assassinating Handel or
Mozart with a bagpipe, or playing Hadyn's symphonies
on a hurdy-gurdy! And yet, what will
not mortals attempt? The most of us have actually
heard a stage Bottom issue such directions as these
to some silly, fat, flobby child in white or green—
“Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get your weapons
in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble
bee on the top of a thistle; and good monsieur,
bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too
much in the action, monsieur; and good monsieur,
have a care that the honey-bag break not; I would
be loth to have you overflown with a honey-bag,
signior;” while Moth, Peas-blossom, Mustard-seed,
and the other elves who—
have been represented by the brothers and sisters
of Cobweb, the juvenile produce and property of
some industrious matron connected with the establishment.
This is as bad as Snout, the joiner,
representing the wall. And with all our vaunted
improvements in stage decoration, how much worse
off was the poor Athenian company for their lion,
and wall, and moonshine, than the unfortunate
modern scene-painter or property-man, who is called
upon by the text to furnish a bank as per order?

No! there are scenes and materials about the
“Tempest” which may, in some slight degree, excuse
its introduction on the stage, and atone for the
manifold barbarities committed upon it when there;
but never let the “Midsummer Night's Dream”—
that fine film—that pure abstraction—that delicate
fret-work of an ethereal imagination, have a tangible
existence.

Let us pass to the common acting plays—Macbeth.
You are sitting by the fire on a winter's
evening, “wrapped” in the perusal of this masterpiece
of nature's masterpiece, preparatory to visiting
the theatre to see it played. In your mind's eye you
perceive the “blasted heath,” the scene of Macbeth's
temptation, sterile and wild, covered with masses of
primeval and “herbless granite,” and untenanted
save by the lonely plover or shy and solitary moorcock.
Beside some rude cairn are clustered the
weird sisters, “posters of the sea and land,” recounting
their exploits, and holding devilish consultation;
in the distance is the army of Macbeth.
There is a bleak and gloomy grandeur in the picture
you have drawn, and you hasten to the theatre

to have it realized. Does not your enthusiasm receive
a shock? Before you is some old, confined
“wood-scene” used on all occasions, with Macbeth
and Banquo, the three beldames, and divers ill-drilled
supernumeraries huddled together in most
unseemly proximity; while the hags, “so wither'd
and so wild in their attire,” are generally represented
(for what reason managers only know) by
three low comedians, for the most part hearty,
plump, oleaginous personages, with whom all sorts
of odd, out-of-the-way associations are connected,
in patched red and tartan petticoats, and stationed
in the full glare of the gas-lamps! True, some of
this cannot be remedied; but much of it might,
were a tithe part of the money and attention directed
towards it that is wasted on some gaud or
pantomime; and much that is now vulgar, common-place
and ridiculous, might, by the aid of a
little liberality and common-sense, be rendered
grand and impressive. But the managers think
that Shakspeare may be used and abused after any
fashion; that he has stamina for any thing; and
they think right, though they act wrong. “Scenery,
machinery, dresses and decorations,” however, may
be amended, “that's comfort, yet;” but alas! what
mental millwright—what skilful machinist, will
put in order and wind up the talking machines that
“do” the subordinate parts about the theatre to the
true Shaksperian pitch, and set them a-going for
the night! Is the schoolmaster yet abroad ordained
to shed a ray of light upon their benighted understandings
concerning the meaning of the author,
or make them sensible of the simple but important
fact, that blank verse is not prose, and ought to be
spoken differently? Here it is where our great
dramatic poet principally suffers. The exuberant
genius of Shakspeare could not stoop to petty calculations.
It never entered into his thoughts what
unimaginative pieces of mortality would, in after
times, give utterance to the glorious poetry that is
scattered indiscriminately over his pages. Small
occasion had he to play the niggard, and carefully
apportion out his sweet fancies and rare conceits to
those who would be likely to give the most effect
in the representation; and hence it is that the
“Goodmen Dulls” of the theatre—the honest plodding
gentlemen with small salaries and corresponding
capacities, who, in other authors, have language
admirably adapted to their modes of thinking and
expression put into their mouths, have frequently,
when doing their work in subordinate characters in
Shakspeare, to utter passages redolent with beauty,
which they do in a way that very satisfactorily
shows these “imperfect speakers” have little occasion
to thank the gods for having made them “poetical.”

Of all Shakspeare's characters there are not any
so systematically ill-used as these same witches in
Macbeth. It has been thought by many who
know something of the matter, that there are a wildness
and sublimity in the character and attributes
of those malignant hags, that are perfectly inapproachable
by any one below Shakspeare's calibre.
And, be it noted, they are not only of wondrous
import of themselves, but the mainspring of all the
principal events in the great drama to which they
belong. The talent and intellect of the greatest
ornaments the stage has produced, would not be
misapplied in endeavoring to give an adequate
idea of these strange and fantastical creations. Yet
what are they at present? Three old women, absolute
objects of mockery and laughter to the audience.
Nay, this seems, in some degree, to be now
their legitimate purpose; for it is not unfrequently
the case, that when the spectators are more decorous
than usual, some of the witches, by a grotesque
action or ridiculous intonation, appeal to them for
the customary tribute—a hearty laugh! But it is
not always the actors who are in fault. There is
one thing which has always especially moved my
admiration. It is the marvellous small provocative

to laughter which people require when congregated
together in large bodies, and when it is quite clear
they should do any earthly thing rather than laugh.
Here, for instance, where the most solemn attention
and breathless anxiety should pervade the house—

Upon this hint, if it be a favorite actor that is expected,
a universal uproar or row commences, which
lasts until Macbeth comes swaggering and bowing
down the stage. If it be not any great or novel
favorite that personates the hero, the scene proceeds
in the following lively manner:

Here the first witch, as a part of the incantation,
bows or nods her head thrice, and a general smile
instantly suffuses the faces of a majority of those
present, in boxes, pit, and gallery, which indisputably
proves that nodding the head thrice is essentially
and exquisitely comic. The second witch
continues “and thrice to thine,” suiting the action

to the word, upon which a general titter ensues.
But when the third witch, in obedience to the line,
“and thrice again to make up nine,” nods thrice
more, the great merriment of the audience can no
longer be contained, and “Peace! the charm's
wound up,” is uttered amid a roar of laughter. “By
day and night, but this is wondrous strange.”
Certes, it would be a merry treat for Voltaire, the
blasphemer of Shakspeare, to see many parts of
Macbeth acted.

On the stage, in the garbled selection designated
Richard III. how much do we miss, or rather, what
a one-sided view is presented to us of the hero.
There is no relief in the character, it is scarcely
Shaksperian, for it is unmixed evil. All the darker
shades are deepened, and brought prominently forward:
and the lighter and more agreeable tints
sedulously excluded from the picture. We have
the “hunchback,” the “bottled spider,” the subtle
tyrant, the hypocrite, and the murderer, at full
length; but we miss the lively animated Richard,
the blunt, quick-witted soldier, the accomplished
courtier, the “princely Gloster,” such as he is to be
found in Shakspeare. We miss all his bitter, though
pleasant and not altogether unmerited gibes and
jeers at King Edward, his wife, and her relations—

and twenty other similar passages, and we lose that
respect for him which, maugre his bad qualities,
his energy, his fiery courage, his constancy, generalship,
and intellectual superiority to those around
him, extort from us through the three parts of
Henry the Sixth. During the long and bloody
wars of the roses, he is almost the only prominent
character who is not at the same time as weak as
wicked.

But of all the acting plays, King Lear undoubtedly
suffers most. Sins of omission and commission
are here too numerous to be pointed out.
There is a radical unfitness too, in the exposure of
the infirmity and imbecility of the aged monarch
through five long acts, that it is scarcely possible
for genius, even of the highest order, to overcome.
The pity produced by an exhibition of physical decay
for any lengthened period, is nearly allied to contempt;
and contempt is by no means the feeling
with which either the mental or bodily weakness
of Lear ought to be regarded. In the closet, we

think of him with natural reverence, as “a poor,
despised, weak, and infirm old man,” “fourscore
and upwards;” on the stage, the repulsive infirmities
attendant on this condition,—shaking, coughing,
tottering; or worse than that, the awkward
imitations of them by the actor, who is constantly
obtruding them on us to show his knowledge of
and attention to, the part, repel our sympathies.
Besides, the madness of Lear is too subtle and refined,
almost too sacred, for the stage. The superhuman
touches of pathos and passion are too
exquisitely fine and delicate for the atmosphere of
a theatre. We get too deeply interested to endure
the thought that it is but counterfeit “well-painted
passion” we are looking on; and, in the excited
state of our feelings, applause becomes impertinence,
and the other noises of a playhouse loathsome.
Whenever other writers for the stage have
failed, it has been from lack of means—from an
inability to conceive or express what the passion or
situation required; but Shakspeare has done more
than succeed; in the exercise of his immortal powers,
he has at times risen to a pitch that has rendered
it impossible for mortals of more limited faculties,
even in their happiest moments of inspiration,
to give other than a poor and imperfect illustration
of his meaning. Of all his characters, this is most
conspicuous in Lear. In these latter days, no man,
save Kean, has succeeded in giving even a faint
idea of the craz'd monarch; all other attempts have
been little better than pitiable. I do not say this
dictatorially. There are many, I doubt not, better
qualified to judge than myself, who think differently.
I quarrel with no man's opinion, but claim the right
of expressing and retaining my own. Those who
are much in the habit of attending the theatre, get
inured to dramatic butchery of all sorts, and can sit
and see, even with a smile on their countenance,
Othello, Richard, Hamlet, Macbeth, and other of
their acquaintance, “savagely slaughtered;” but
even the most seared and case-hardened play-goer
must feel that an ill-judged attempt in Lear is little
better than profanation.

I am by no means contending that Lear should
never be played, but have only been endeavoring
to point out some of the difficulties and disadvantages
attendant thereon: yet I had almost forgotten
the principal drawback. On the stage, the Fool,
(so called) the best and wisest, if not the wittiest,
of Shakspeare's fools, is altogether omitted. All his
pithy sayings—his scraps of doggerel, with a deep
meaning in them—his shrewd commentaries on
the folly of the king, and the ingratitude of his
daughters—all gone “at one fell swoop.” We miss

him sadly, for he is not only the most sensible,
but best hearted of fools; and there is something
peculiarly touching in his unflinching adherence to
the fortunes of his master, at the same time that he
has judgment to see his interest lies the other way,
and shrewdness to give such keen and bitter counsel
as this for the desertion of fallen greatness—
“Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down
a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it;
but the great one that goes up the hill, let him
draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better
counsel, give me mine again. I would have
none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.”
He seems too, to have a quicker insight than any
around as to “how the world wags;” for when
Kent asks,
he chides his dullness of perception by answering,
In the
last extremity, when the poor monarch is “unhousel'd,

What a picture is presented to the imagination by

these few words—“none but the fool” of fallen
greatness on the one hand, and unswerving fidelity
on the other. It is gratifying to know that this
affection is at least reciprocated; for Lear, even
after his “wits begin to turn,” exclaims—

But we might pursue this subject to “the crack
of doom;” or at least, to speak more prosaically and
sensibly, we might continue it to a most tiresome
and unreasonable length. The gist of what we
have been endeavoring to show, is,—not that
Shakspeare should be played less, but that he
should be read more; to point out to those who
are contented to become acquainted with him for
the most part through the medium of the stage,
how much they lose by such a procedure; and to
prove that some of his plays, from their high and
peculiar nature, are fitted for the closet alone; and
to expose a few of the drawbacks upon the pleasure
of seeing him acted, occasioned by the carelessness
or incapability of those who have the charge of
dramatic entertainments.