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RICHINGS.
Notwithstanding the manifold dramatic sins
and improprieties of this great man and multifarious
actor, he is by no means a disagreeable or unentertaining
personage. Some of his efforts are
highly amusing; and at all times he at least never
fails in securing his own most decided approbation,
as is quite evident from the everlasting smile of self-complacency
which irradiates his very good-looking
countenance; and, be it remarked, that in these
captious, fault-finding, universal-diffusion-of-knowledge
times, when every one who turns over an
author or looks at an actor or picture, feels in duty
bound to furnish forth his mite of carping criticism,
in order to make manifest the preternatural acuteness
it has pleased heaven to invest him with, a
confirmed habit of self-approval is by no means an
uncomfortable quality. It is really a pleasure to
any man who delights in witnessing the happiness
his entry on the stage in a character which requires
that he should be arrayed in goodly apparel.
How happy, how exuberantly happy he is! Joy
sparkles in his eyes, and his physiognomy is radiant
with smiles! Perhaps the individual in the
play whom he undertakes to represent, is some
poor unfortunate, afflicted with debt or other dire
distress. But what of that? Is any person so unreasonable
as to expect Mr. Richings will for that
hang his nether lip, and look dolorously at the audience?
No—his face is an index of his mind—
gladness reigns there, and the sorrows of the personage
whose name and situation he assumes, are
far too remote and abstracted to counterbalance the
inspiriting feelings produced by a well-fitting fashionable
coat and an unimpeachable pair of inexpressibles.
And who will say that this is copying
nature abominably? Copying nature! why it is
nature itself, as may be seen exemplified in a hundred
instances, with a few slight modifications, any
fine day on the shady side of Broadway.—Yet, for
all this, the stage-manager at the Park will sometimes
set this gentleman—this very Mr. Richings,
to play tragedy. Misjudging Mr. Barry! Search
for some lean bilious wretch, to speak blank verse
and administer arsenic. Is this a man to “move
in the pathetic, and rehearsing his griefs and
sorrows? His griefs and sorrows! why the audience
would look in his well-conditioned frontispiece,
and see at once that it was a palpable untruth—a
barefaced attempt to impose upon their sympathies.
Still, he is at times compelled to do this, which perturbs
his spirit very much, and causes him to grow
furious, and then he does so “roar, that it would
do any man's heart good to hear him;”—and it
does do the hearts of many good—and the ears of
many good, who delight in, and are excited by,
loud sounds; and they pronounce it “great,” and
clap their hands, as much as to say, “let him roar
again, let him roar again.'
As a vocalist Mr. Richings is rather distinguished
by force than sweetness; and as a comedian, many
of his efforts, like Cumberland's comedies, are not
to be laughed at. There is a fine balance of mental
and physical qualifications in him: if at times his
sentences are badly put together, and his periods
inelegantly turned, his shoulders might furnish
hints to a statuary in both those respects; and
though his conceptions be ever so faulty, a more
faultless leg cannot be conceived. Indeed, in personal
appearance, he is model of a man. In the mental
department he has sundry objectionable properties,
facetiousness, which finds vent in the shape of manufactured
pieces of pleasantry that are ever and
anon thrown in the face of the audience; some
of those extempore coruscations at times elicit a
laugh from a few choice spirits, who are particularly
quick at catching any thing that sounds like
a joke, though the majority are generally at a loss
to discover in what the jest consists; and this practice
has the unfortunate tendency of occasionally
leading to the belief that Mr. Richings, like Sir
Andrew Aguecheek, has, at times, “no more wit
than a christian or an ordinary man.” Like that
immortal knight too, he looks as if he were “a
great eater of beef,” and perchance that “does harm
to his wit.”
Altogether, however, Mr. R. is a useful performer,
and evidently strives to please. From a very miserable
actor he has already become quite a respectable
one, and in some parts has really evinced considerable
comic talents. Besides, he has been a
long time at the Park threatre, and all who have
been there for any considerable period, even the
worst (amongst whom we are far from classing
Mr. R.) acquire from the good company that surrounds
them and the audience before which they
appear, a certain look and manner of conducting
at least comparatively speaking. When
Mr. Richings transported himself to the regions of
the La Fayette, he actually moved like a demi-god
among the scum and refuse that latterly congregated
there. It is to be hoped he will not again
migrate from his present quarters. We should be
sorry to miss his good-humoured, good-looking face,
and his unique manner of doing some things. Besides,
he is an improving actor, and may he long
continue so.
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