THE NEW TRAGEDIAN.
Mu. PEMBERTON appeared at Covent Garden on Monday, in MACREADVS part of Virginius. He certainly was well received ; yet we were so little satisfied that this experiment afforded a just test of his powers as an actor, that we resolved to defer our judgment till we had seen him in other characters. Our silence is partly broken, at the suit of a Correspondent, who volunteers a friendly but not an unfair notice of the performance; front which our present opinion differs not much in the main—though we cannot be expected to acknowledge an especial necessity for the episode on the hardheartedness of critics. The worst we could say of Mr. PEMBERTON.S 11•7):ghtittS is, that it was somewhat unpleasant. But it manifested study, stay knowledge, and above all, passion ; a quality essenlial to the tragedian, and which distinguishes him from the mere reciter of blank verse, or the strutting and staring
hero of melodrame.
"The character of Virginius is peculiar. The father, the citizen, the patriot, and the avenger are mingled in it. In the earlier scenes we meet him in affectionate intercourse with his only and his darling child, in
social intimacy with his friend, and in the forum rebuking the pusillanimity of his fellow-citizens. The touches here are light and delicate, as his
temper is yet unruffled by the terrible scenes which afterwards afflict him.
Ile is calm, and dignified, affectionate and friendly, in private life ; in public he exhibits the sturdy republican, the consciousness of unerring integrity, and the loftiest independence. In the latter scenes we find him agitated by revenge, and a succession of tumultuous feelings, roused by a sense of injury to himself, of wrongs to his kind and country, and by such conflicts of pride and parental feeling, as a father must bear, who, to save his child from profanation and violence by the lustful man of power, is impelled to sacrifice her life on the altar of her honour. This
is the general style of the character ; and it is manifest that the range of power, called forth in the exhibition of its several features, is of a very various order. Mr. Pemberton's powers are of greater scope for the latter and more passionate scenes, than the quiet, the domestic, the fatherly, and the friendly; and yet in these he showed an ability far above mediocrity, and whin, judging from the more active and energetic parts of the performance, we are inclined to think was kept in some restraint by the anxiety of the occasion. In the latter scenes, the .energy of his passion was roused and it triumphed. On his first entrance, we thought him too stiff and stately—not dignified ; and this defect continued in most of the quiet scenes. His action was graceful, and his elocution distinct, but his voice did not appear to be of compass sufficient to fill the house, unless elevated by the impulse of strong feeling. It seemed in the earlier scenes that, as if burdened with his own personal feelings, his mind was not present to its situation. He played as if from habit ; it was correct, hut not animated. Here and there were touches of great excellence, and he exhibited a dawn of power only. In the latter and more passionate scenes, in his address to Appius, in the agitation and convulsion of his frame on killing his daughter, in that act itself, in the subsequent scenes of madness (especially in that where he confronts Appius in the dungeon, and demands his daughter), and in that of his death, he displayed power of the highest order. In the scenes to which we have just alluded, whatever might be the case with the earlier, there was no lack of warmth, of ease, and freedom of action ; his voice was of volume enough to fill the theatre, and the audience approved by alternations of applause and silence. The judgment of a critic is often to he feared. His feelings are seldom in alliance with it. His eye is engaged in watching and his mind in weighing the points of the character, and the defects and the merits of the actor. His experience furnishes him with models, to the standard of which he lowers or raises the qualities of every fresh candidate. A casual spectator, or one at least not interested to detect error or employed to criticise, with a judgment less acute, but with feelings kindlier perhaps, less biassed, and more excitable, is a better judge or the thing. His feelings are the criteria. He has no false or doubtful standard. The critic, therefore, should adopt Moliere's example, and look upon the mirror which the mixed multitude holds up, where the effect of the performance is clearly reflected in the sympathy of the audience, announced alike by spontaneous bursts of applause—which, though often misplaced, indicate a general pleasure—and by the listening silence, which will not lose aught of what confers that pleasure. These tests decided us ; and we venture to affirm, at least " Mr. Pemberton promises well." But we do not anticipate that all will be his admirers. The timid and the gentle— the approvers, in fact;of such mild, gentlemanly acting as Young's—will not be his admirers : but they who love to gaze on intensity of passion— to watch the tumultuous convulsions of soul, wrestling with and almost overpowering the frame, and yet overcome by it at last—will, we think, be favourable to him. His countenance is not prepossessing; it is furrowed by passion, which has deeply marked its labours on it, and there fixed the lines of suffering and of age. It has been remarked that Mr. Pemberton looks about fifty : we have heard, and believe the truth to be, that he is at least a dozen years younger. His stature is rather above the middle height, his figure good, and his eye strikingly assists the delineation of character. We observed in the daily papers, a resemblance traced in him to Kean and Macready, and we have heard a private opinion of an occasional resemblance to Young. There is all that similitude which the same positions, circumstances, and passions will produce on him they affect. The vehemence of Kean is in Pemberton ; and when passion rises to a higher pitch than the voice can compass, the same harshness, the same ruggedness will happen. The same passions which Macready has portrayed, Pemberton also portrays, and he is like unto him, for they are alike. It should he observed, that on the stage the positions of the actors arc determined by rules of stage art, to which all actors are subservient; and whether Kean, Mecready, or Pemberton perform, they are placed in the same point of view to the audience."
Previous page
