AMUSEMENTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4542, 11 October 1875, Page 3

AMUSEMENTS.

11 A crown’s worth of good interpretation/' —Shakspere.

I do not think that there is much necessity for notice of the performances at the Theatre Royal from the date of my last writing up to Saturday last. All the causes which were previously mentioned as militating against the effective appearance of the company in any but a certain line of pieces, have been in full operation, in consequence of that line of pieces not having been played. “ Meg’s Diversion ” was as rueful an effort as possible, and until I saw the Eoyal Company in “ Aladdin ” I had no idea how badly that best of burlesques could be played. These things being so, it was no wonder that the audiences were very attenuated, and that their approbation did not show itself in a very demonstrative fashion. But on Saturday night last all this was changed. Mr. and Sirs. Darrell made a reappearance in Wellington. The house was in 'many parts crowded, and “ Macbeth ” was played. The performance was by no means as a whole the best that the majority of the audience has seen, but it was equally by no men.ng the worst, and it was such a satisfactory relief from what had for some nights preceded it, that I am desirous to write of it in a less closely critical fashion than I might be were we fairly entitled to claim better things at the hands of the company. It is impossible that Mr. and Mrs. Darrell should in Shaksperian plays be now accompanied by acting of such general excellence as that which supported them when they were here before, and which fairly invited comparative criticism of Mr. Darrell’s acting in the leading parts. Therefore it is not unnatural that I should feel less inclined to find fault than I might be when fault-finding would be forced on me by faults presenting themselves most prominently. And hence a remark may be permitted to the effect that the present writer can say in sincerity that he is no fault-finder in the .acceptation of that word as commonly used, and that very few who undertake to write of dramatic performances really are fault-finders. The fact is, and it would he better if actors and actresses realised this, that it is as a rule the faults of performers and of a performance that will insist in finding out a writer and impressing him, rather than it is the case that a writer is anxious to find those faults himself. A better understanding of this fact would be an improvement in those who cause faults. There are few, if any, of Shakspere’s plays from which so many passages have been adopted in our common writing and common conversation as have been taken from “ Macbeth.” To make copious quotations in order to prove what I have written, would occupy more space than is permitted to me in a newspaper. If any one doubt the accuracy of my assertion, however, I would entreat him to read “ Macbeth” with care, to mark those passages which strike him as having been heard quoted, and then to notice how frequent they are. What I have stated is largely attested by the last act of the play, wherein are some of the tenderest passages of human melancholy that can be thought of. Not metaphysically melancholy, but sad with the human sadness which all men can understand. I have heard it said, too, and that with apparent reason, that in one instance at least the exquisite taste of Shakspere is nowhere more strikingly exhibited than it is in “ Macbeth.” The instance is that in which a similar idea is expressed in very different fashions by Macbeth and his wife respectively. The former says, in language well chosen to fit his character and sex.

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean Irom my hand ? No; this my band will rather The multitudinous seas incamardine. Making the green one red.

As an antithesis to this take Lady Macbeth’s words ; “ AH the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” Next to this case I think Shakspere’s taste is best exemplified in the difference of the language which he puts into the mouths of Claudius and Gertrude when soliciting Hamlet to stay with them rather than go to Wittenberg. Perhaps I have been betrayed by a fondness for the play itself into dilating upon matters which, dilated even this little length upon, will leave but small space for criticism of its performance on Saturday night. I ask pardon and plead excuse. Taken as a whole few will deny that the performance was most satisfactory. Mrs. Darrell’s Lady Macbeth loses none of its excellence by frequent witnessing of it. From the first line to the last, in every word and in every gesture, Mrs. Darrell’s acting is a

pleasure and a lesson. A pleasure, in that you feel that she is working out a conception of a part matured, studied, and refined_by practice; a lesson, in that it shows what genius, with the aforementioned aids, can The audience felt as I feel in writing, as might be seen from the attention with which they followed the reading of Macbeth’s letter read as it should be, without sacrificing sense to the making of points, without losing meaning in unnecessary efforts to attract applause. But even in the making points where the text admits of such, notice may well be taken of Mia Darrell’s reading of the fines commencing “We fail.” If my memory of stage tradition serve me aright, previously to Mrs. Siddons s time, and in many instances since, these lines have been spoken with the emphasis on the word “ we,” as much as to say it is impossible that “we” should fail; but Mrs. Darrell uses Mrs. Siddons’s reading, which was to say simply “we fail,” as who would say, Well, we know the worst—failure, and can meet it, and then, turning on “ Macbeth, to go on, “But screw your courage to the sticking place, and we’ll not fail.” It seems to me almost superfluous to criticise a performance so often seen, so well known, and so much appreciated as Mrs. Darrell’s Lady Macbeth, more especially when the part was performed under circumstances that made such acting as hers seem paradise after a week’s purgatory. I have a remembrance of criticising Mr. Darrell’s Hamlet not altogether, perhaps, to his satisfaction, but on the occasion of doing so Mr. Darrell presented a fair mark for criticism by playing what is admittedly the most difficult Shaksperian part to render to a critic’s satisfaction, and the most easy, perhaps, to achieve a moderate success in with an audience. Mr. Darrell was also playing with a company many members of which could have made as fair a claim to distinction in Hamlet as he. But on Saturday night he played Macbeth as really the only member of the company capable of giving a rendering which could not at least annoy one by rant and claptrap. I will therefore say little of his Macbeth, except to point out places in which, perhaps, without being egotistical, I may offer advice. In the first place, he inclined to a fault, which I noticed in his Hamlet, of endeavoring to lend force to a speech by a repetition of its initiatory word. This was especially noticeable in the line beginning “ If it were done.” Again, in the passage “ I dai’e do all that may become a man,” he wrongly, as it appears to me, placed the emphasis on “become.” Such an emphasis might be correct if the line “ Who dare do more is none,” plainly pointing out that the contrast is between being “ a man” and being “ no man” did not follow Also, the words in Shakspere are, “Vaulting ambition whicho’erleaps itself,” and not“itsel,’ as Mr. Darrell gave it. He also said, “ Does murder sleep,” instead of “ Hath murther d sleep.” To notice Mr. Darrell’s saying, “ The sere and yellow and leaf,” instead of “The sere the yellow leaf," may seem hypercritical, but when a gentleman as an actor undertakes to act “ Macbeth,” he should attend to these things. For Mr. Darrell’s reading “ The way to dusky death,” instead of “ The way to dusty death,” he has the authority of Dr. Warhurton, but not of the commonly accepted text. Barry Sullivan and others, before Mr. Darrell, adopted the reading, “ Hang out our banners —on the outward walls the cry is still 1 they come.’ ” This reading is on the presupposition that the banners would not be hung upon the outer walls, but on a central prominent point-of the fortress, such, for instance, as the donjon keep. But it is more reasonable to suppose that, in accordance with a custom of the time, the defenders fought in parties under the banners of different chiefs, which banners would be placed upon the outer walls to mark the places of such parties. If I mistake not, under Norman custom, there is mention of this practice in the attack on the castle, in Ivanhoe. There are many other matters to which I might draw Mr. Darrell’s attention. He might curb a certain boisterousness of expression in the more pathetic speeches in the fifth act, especially where, after threatening the messenger with hanging if his news prove false, “Macbeth” says, in utter weariness and despair, “ If thy speech he sooth, I care not if thou dost for me as much." But as I a am offering my remarks less in criticism than as mere advice, which may be wrong, but is given with good intention, I need say no more. For the manner in which other parts in “ Macbeth ” were played, it may be remarked that Mr. Burford did his lungs full justice in Macduff, and was “called” by some who appreciate lungs; that Miss Rajmond made a most excellent Malcolm by making herself look as like a young man as possible, and by speaking what was set down for her with judgment and expression; that an evident 'cold marred the effect of Miss Nye’s fine voice as Hecate; and that the gentleman who should have opened the singing was conspicuous by his absence, which compelled a lady to take up the lines, “ Speak, sister, speak,” on the spur of the moment. Histmojiastix.