 | Crayon sketches |  |
BARRY AND WOODHULL.
These two performers are as opposite as the antipodes,
and we place them together for the sake of
contrast. Their style of acting is as dissimilar as
may be. Woodhull is as unbending as iron—
Barry as yielding as wax. In the expression of passion,
Woodhull, like a flint, must be struck sharply
before he emits a spark of fire—while Barry, like a
rocket, is off in a blaze, at the slightest touch. The
one is as hard as granite—the other as flexible as
silk; and if, by any process, the qualities of the two
could be compounded together, a fine actor would
be the result. In melo-dramas, where murders
have to be committed, or any other unlawful transaction
carried on, they mostly hunt in couples.
Both are generally scoundrels, but scoundrels with
a difference. Woodhull is the stanch, obdurate
villain—Barry the weak and wavering sinner. The
one has “no compunctious visitings of nature”—
to catch the nearest way.” Barry murders
like a novice, while Woodhull does his work with
the easy self-possession of a professional gentleman.
In the end, too, when poetical justice comes to be
awarded, they consistently die in character—the
one marches to the gallows as “cool as a cucumber,”
while the other in some fit of repentance,
cheats the law by bursting a blood-vessel, or going
off in a fit of apoplexy. For the truth of all
this we appeal to nine-tenths of the melo-dramas
that have been or may be enacted at the Park
theatre, in which these gentlemen have heretofore
appeared or may hereafter appear.
Mr. Barry is an actor with many faults, but still
one that may safely be called a good actor—a title
which, when fairly deserved, a man may be proud
of, for it implies the possession of much and varied
ability. He is a good actor, and there is nothing
to prevent his being a better. Nature has given
him a handsome face, a graceful person, and a full
and mellow voice. Added to these advantages, his
conception of his part is generally correct, and his
execution spirited. The great fault of Mr. Barry
is exaggeration—exaggeration in every variety of
shape; but principally exaggeration in action, and
this pervades, more or less, every thing he does.
and when he should be in a passion, he is in
a frenzy; when he should tremble for a moment,
he shakes for a minute; and when flourishing a
sword or any thing else, where once would do, he
invariably does it twice; and so on, even to the
veriest trifle, the same spirit exists. In some parts
he is a complete fever and ague; and in characters
where he has to look upon a spectre, an injured
friend, or any thing of that sort, he daubs his face
—particularly under the eyes—with some vile
composition which gives him the appearance of an
animated corpse: a new way, we presume of painting
the passions. When Mr. Barry has a mind, he
can do what not one in a hundred can, that is,
read poetry properly. He pronounces distinctly,
minds his stops, accentuates his words with judgment,
and modulates the tones of his voice with
good effect; but let any of the dramatis personæ
put this same Mr. Barry in a passion, and off he
goes, laying, without discretion, a most astounding
emphasis on every second or third word, which
makes the dialogue jolt along like a hard-trotting
horse; a proceeding which gains him a good deal
of applause and no credit.
We have now found all the fault we can consistently
with truth, with Mr. Barry, and have dwelt
because he has good qualities enough to make
it well worth while to tell him of his bad ones; and
moreover, because those bad ones are of such a nature
as could be easily amended. With “all his
imperfections on his head,” he has few equals, and
no superior here as a melo-dramatic actor; and
there are parts of a higher grade where his besetting
sins are kept under by the nature of the character;
such as the Duke Aranza, in the Honey
Moon, which, we think he plays better than any
man in the country. There is also a species of
genteel comedy in which he is very agreeable.
We have but little space left for remarks on that
much-enduring man, Mr. Woodhull. And what
can be said of him, more than that he is one of the
most useful and ill-used actors that ever trod the
boards of a theatre! Who can particularize Mr.
Woodhull's line of character? It is enough to
make the head ache to think of what he has to go
through in a single month. A few weeks ago we
hinted at his blood-thirsty propensities on the stage,
and he still goes on adding to his dramatic crimes;
qut this is only a single branch of his extensive
business. He plays old misers and young spendthrifts,
greybeards and lovers, walking gentlemen
and half-pay officers, soldiers, sailors, Irishmen,
tailors and Indian savages; and all this work is
done without offence; and most of it with satisfaction
to the audience. What incalculable quantities
of trash have to pass through his unfortunate brain
and be impressed upon his memory! What floods
of nonsense have to issue from his mouth! Night
after night, week after week, month after month,
and year after year—in play, in interlude, and in
farce, there is Mr. Woodhull! and yet, notwithstanding
the wear and tear that his intellect must
have suffered from such courses, his brain appears
untouched—his sense continues perfect, and he yet
goes through his multifarious business with more
propriety and rationality than many a would-be
star.
| Crayon sketches | |