"MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING," AT THE LYCEUM.
MR. IRVING has added the character of Benedick to the list of his impersonations of Shakespeare, and by the time this journal is in our readers' hands, all the notices of the daily papers will have informed the public of the success attend- ing the first performance of Much Ado About Nothing by the management of the Lyceum Theatre. We say of the success, for there is little doubt that the majority of the notices will be favourable. The piece has been put upon the stage with even more than the care, richness, and completeness which have be- come habitual at this theatre under Mr. Irving's management, and an audience would indeed be hard to please who did not appreciate the thought and thoroughness of detail which have been lavishly displayed. It is, perhaps, worthy of remark that in some respects the broad effect of some of the situations in the piece has been a little lost, in the over-elabora- tion of the details. On this subject, we must speak later on ; at present, we have to face the question which every one is or will be asking,—What Of Benedick, what of Beatrice ? When the actor of whom we are speaking played Romeo, he was treated by the public and the critics with a kindness which had two causes. The one was that the piece was splendidly put on the stage, and the cast, as a whole, an excessively strong one ; the other cause was that—we will speak plainly— every one knew that he• could not do the part. If there was a character in the whole range of dramatic art which Mr. Irving was unfitted by nature, habit, and previous experience to play, it was that of a half-impulsive, half-puling boy, always either in a hot or a cold fit of passion. The public recog- nised this, and apparently so did the actor, for he kept Romeo very much in the background. The failure, however—for failure it was, despite many redeeming features — was one which consisted only in the actor's incapacity to do the impos- .sible ; his very successes had rendered it a foregone conclusion that he should fail. Fancy what it would be, if the same man could be satisfactory as Louis XL, Eugene Aram, 'Richard III., and Romeo ! But in this character of Benedick there could be no foregone conclusion of this kind. Mr. Irving has attempted many varieties of comedy, and it is not too much to say that he has hitherto achieved considerable success in all. His fame was first made to discerning eyes in the part of Dighy Grant, in The Two _Roses, where, side by side with such first-rate comedians as Thomas Thorne and the late George Honey, he succeeded in making his small part the most interest- ing portion of the play. And so in many another comedy, he had achieved success, and as Doricourt, Jeremy Diddler, and Jingle, had proved himself the master of a peculiar, but indubitable vein of humour. Comic in the broad sense of the word, he could scarcely be called but humorous ; and when the part admitted of auy of the more intense kinds of irony, he was peculiarly successful. So it came about that his impersonation of Benedick has been eagerly looked forward to, and confidently anticipated by his admirers as a coming triumph. But in our opinion, it cannot be called such ; and if it be not a failure, it is only that an actor of Mr. Irving's intelligence could scarcely make an utter failure of a part where all the lines are so strongly marked. A clever man does not become stupid, so much may readily be conceded, no matter how badly fitted he may be with an uncongenial part ; and an actor who thinks earnestly about his business, is bound_ to strike out some new lights in the course of his study, even when the study is, as a whole, unsuccessful. But we may say, at once, that, with these premises, we care as little as may be for Mr. Irving's Benedick. It has all the elements of. weakness, which we so rarely see in his work. It is feeble and inconsecutive in its rendering of the character ; it produces no vivid impression of any kind, it gives ns no new' ideas as to what Shakespeare meant, or what his interpreter means ; and what fun it possesses is obtained in a cheap, fetch-the-gallery sort of manner, which' we should have thought would scarcely have found favour, at the Lyceum.
The receipt for the "popular mystery known to the world as a heavy dragoon " comes irresistibly to one's mind, on seeing this Beuedick ; and he seems, like Coleman's hero, to be " two single gentlemen rolled into one." The humour of. the character de- generates into something which is almost farce, and it seems at times as if we were looking at an overgrown schoolboy playing at being a woman-hater. And the impersonation grows less en- durable still when the change takes place, and though it may tickle the " eyes " of the groundlings to see Mr. Irving stand in the front of the stage, making faces to express his perplexity, we saw in it nothing that was admirable. Indeed, the impres- sion given is, first; that the misanthropy was a joke, secondly, that the love was an even greater joke, an interpretation which has the effect of leaving the spectator in a complete fog as to what the actor means, or whether he means anything at all.
Of Miss Terry's Beatrice there is only one grave point that we need touch upon, nor should we dilate upon that, were it not a matter which bids fair to grow upon and in time to spoil, the charm of a most charming actress. The Stage cannot afford to have Miss Terry spoilt;' her bright, laughing, English grace and intelligence are too precious. . But more and more, it appears to us, is this actress losing the finer thread of her dramatic power. No one felt more than her warmest admirers, her failure to touch more than the outside aspect of Juliet. With every gift of nature and art to fit her for the part-7-looking sixteen, or dressed as well as a woman could be dressed, and making as pretty a picture as a woman could make—she yet failed lamentably in every scone that really tested her power. She was charming, but she was never Juliet. And the same thing must be said now. She is more charming than ever, better dressed than ever, almost prettier than ever ; but Beatrice, in the deeper capacities of the part, she Les not touch. It is a rough expression, but it hints the truth when we say she tumbles through the part. Take an example. After the scorning of Hero by Claudio (a difficult bit very well acted by Mr. Forbes Robertson), at the close of the fourth act, Beatrice and Benedick are left alone,—he to discover his love, and she to urge him to revenge Hero's desertion by killing Claudio. This is the great test scone of the play, as far as Beatrice and Benedick are owl- corned. Here, if ever, Beatrice is in terrible earnestness. Out- raged womanhood, at witnessing a sister shamed, has driven every other feeling out of her mind ; she cannot even think of her own love, or whether Claudio might not 'have been right. She is past sense and logic, and everything but desire for revenge. How does Miss Terry treat it P It seemed to us that she treated it throughout as any coquette might who was bent on being charming at all hazards. Her "Kill ' Claudio ! " was pretty and enticing, but there was no ring of real desire in it for Claudio's death ; and when she comes to the long speech which ends with " 0 God that I were a man ! I would eat his heart in the market-place," it was delivered in a way that was equivalent to,—" Oh dear, oh dear! I don't know what I wouldn't do, if I were a man. I think I'd—oh, I'd eat • his heart in the market-place !" It may be hyper-criticiam to object to an actress for being too charming, but that is our objec- tion to Miss Terry's later impersonations. She appears to us to be so intent upon being pretty, and graceful, and fascinating, that she has no time left to study the essence of her parts ; and when the time for real power and emotion comes, it is lightly glided over, with a few graceful gestures and rapid movements.
One other point must just he noticed, as it applies both to Benedick and Beatrice. Even when all allowance is made for the nervousness of a first night's performance, there still re- mains far too much restlessness in the manner in which both characters were played. Neither Benedick nor Beatrice seemed able to keep still for a moment, and at times this resolved itself into a sort of jig about the stage, very trying to the nerves of the audience. The scenery and ensemble of the piece were most beautiful, and, speaking . personally, we have rarely seen so many beautiful groups of figures, with appro- priate backgrounds, in a whole picture-gallery, as Mr. Irving provides us with in the course of this play. If the dresses erred at all, it was in over-richness ; but this can scarcely be grumbled at, when it was accompanied by such good-taste as was shown throughout. Two exceptions should, in fairness, be made to this last remark. Don John's second suit was hideously ugly, and looked like a swimming costume; and Mr. Forbes Robertson's dresses were unfortu- nate iu general effect, though rid' in detail. We can give but few words to the minor characters in the play. Minor, for it
must be conceded that, whatever their faults, Mr. Irving and Miss Terry always are the chief people on any stage where they are together. Don Pedro was clearly and firmly acted by Mr. Terriss, who was magnificently dressed, and bore himself well and strongly. He is a little too fond of certain gestures of hand and head, but is a thoroughly trustworthy actor, and has a gallant bearing that is very effective. Don John was played by Mr. Glenny quietly, and if the expression may be allowed, slimily, and was, on the whole, good, though he might have been somewhat more audible with advantage. Mr. Robertson's Claudio was, on the whole, a poor performance, for an actor who should be in the first rank of jamas premiers. He looked finicking and silly in the first three acts, and would have been a failure, had he not woke up in the fourth, and proved himself capable of mastering his great scene thoroughly well. After this he relapsed into tameness again, and faded away without further recognition. Hero was painstakingly acted by Miss Millward, with nice, lady-like taste, but no power. Mr. Fernandez, as Leonato was quite at his best, and carried off most of the minor honours of the piece ; and Mr. F. Tyars made, we thought, a distiuct success of the small part of Borachio. Ile was thoroughly well dressed, and looked as if he had just stepped out of one of Veroneqe's pictures; and acted very quietly and very well, with capital by-play and most intelligent rendering of his words. The only real failure in the acting was in the part of Dogberry, which was very conventionally rendered by Mr. Johnson. A word of special praise must be given to the scene-painter, and one scene, the interior of the church in the fourth act, was a marvellous piece of work to get set in the interval of eighteen minutes in which it had to be done. The 'building looked as solid as if it had been where it was for a couple of hundred years. In conclusion, we must say that the play was very enjoyable, but that, in our opinion, no fresh laurels have been gained to either actor or actress, by the Beatrice of Miss Terry, or by the Benedick of Mr. Irving.
IIALIRY QUI LTER.
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