"If Ile *wanton - " Oct ober 13, 1849
THE THEATRE
THE appearance of Mr. Macready on Monday last, at the Haymarket, as the commencement of a series of performances that with some interrupJ tion will continue a good way into next year, is the important event of the week. The farewells which he has uttered in several provincial towns are to be followed by the greater farewell in London.
When the present series of performances is ended, and the career of Me. Macready has become matter of history, people will ask themselves what were his peculiarities. If we say that naturalness (an ugly but a usefut word) is at the basis of all Mr. Macready's impersonations, we do not conceive we shall widely err. To seize on an emotion, to render it perfectly comprehensible to every capacity, to familiarize the creations of the dramatist to the spectator, rather than to hold them in a state of august elevation, seems to be his constant aim. There are no means by which he produces a stronger effect on his audience, than by certain little familiar touches—say, an ironical expression of contempt, which belongs exclusively to his own manner, and almost to his own physique. These expressions surprise by their sudden truthfulness, and have never failed to awaken sympathy.
It is in the characters in which there is the least tangible material, and which depend on a certain ideal elevation, that he is seen to the least advantage. The Roman characters of Shakspere, which were kept so constantly before the public during the declamatory reign of Kemble, have not been his especial favourites ; and during his long career, the once popular Julius Caesar has been seen but little on the London boards. There is nothing of the statuesque about Mr. Macready's acting—he has none of the poses which tend to awe a multitude ; he feels the beauty of the poetry which he utters, but the marking of measure is with him but a secondary consideration. With the evident realism of his notions, he would doubtless reject all the expedients of a studied action, ;ind a voice modulated for a sonorous delivery of metre, as not belonging to the modesty of nature. The actual human being, with his i.tYs Ind sufferings, is what he seeks to exhibit, rather than the ideal creation‘ which may be supposed to float above the sphere of humanity.
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