MR LOCKE RICHARDSON. Interview with a Famous Shakespearian. Reader.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 176, 30 October 1886, Page 4 (Supplement)

MR LOCKE RICHARDSON. Interview with a Famous Shakespearian. Reader.

Mr Locke Riohabdson (the accomplished elocutionist who was in Auckland a few months ago) appears to be the lion of the hour in Melbourne j ust now. The following account of an interview with him is taken from a Melbourne exchange:— Mr Locke Richardson, the Shakespearian reader who has recently surprised -and delighted Mel~ bourne audiences by his marvellous recitations, has many more surprise" in store. He is the fortunate possessor of an infinite capacity for taking pains, and he has, mastered toward perfection no less than fifteen of Shakespeare's plays, which he recites with great dramatic effect, after careful and discriminating study of the best critics. His Shakespearian repertoire includes "Hamlet," "Othello," "As You Like i It," " King Lear," " The Merry Wives o£ Windsor," " The Tempest," " King John', 1 "Henry the Fourth," "Henry the Fifth," "Winter's Tale," "Twelfth' Night," "Romeo and Juliet," "Macbeth," "The Merchant of Venice," "Julius Caesar." These plays he has committed to memory, 1 and recites without note, reference, or prompter. The recitations are the delight of Shakespearian students, for Mr Locke Richardson brings to bear upon, his interpretations of the text a cultivated mind, genuine dramatic ability, keen literary taste, and the results of the study of critics such as Coleridge, Hazlitt, and Schlegel. His recitations are not confined to Shakespeare. He can give, with the poetic ardour of a George Macdonald, "Enoch Arden," -'The Idylls of the King" (from Tenuyaon), gems from the works of Lougfellow, Sheridan's "Rivals,'* Dickeng's " Christmas Carol, ' and so on through a long list of famous pieces. la the United States he frequently recited to audiences of 2,000 at matinees in the great cities of the Union— New York. Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. A fow months ago, when on a holiday tour to Honolulu, he was induced to vieit Australia, as he was told that there ke would find a welcome reception accorded to him. It wag represented » to him that, ft materially and mentally, there were a grfeat many points of similarity between Chicago and Melbourne ; and as he had succeeded well in Chicago, he consented to place himself under the guidance of Mr R. S, Symthe, of whose abilities as a business manager he had. heard. On his way here Mr Locke Richardson visited New Zealand, and commencing in Auckland with audiences of fifty to a hundred persons, in a very short time the la ge Choral Hall and tKe Opera House were barely sufficient to accommodate the crowds who hung upon hie words. In New York, Mr Richardson was for some years annually selected to commence the lecture season of the Young Men's Christian Association there by a Shakespearian reading. He has moved in the very best circles of American society, and numbers among his friends Oliver Wendell Holmes, Bret Harte, the late Wendell Philips, and Ralph Waldo EmerBOn. Mr Richardson is a very modest man. It is with great difficulty he can be got to speak about himself. Of Brutus he will discourse 'or hours, but of himself he only lets drop a hint here and there. In the course of a long and interesting interview with our representative yesterday evening, Mr Richardson, in answer to questions, courteously explained that he was educated at Trinity College, Toronto, where he graduated. He was doubtful ior a time as to the choice of a profession ; but on reaching mature manhood he became aware that he pos&esed a memory the power of which he has never yet grasped. Gifted with the literary instinct bevond most literary men, he had studied Shakespeare critically, and finding that he was not exactly adapted for the church, which he had thought of, he set himeelf to master Shakespeare's plays— determiningtobecome a public reader. He studied under Professor Bell, formerly professor of elocution in Edinburgh, but now of Washington, whose son, by the way, is the inventor of the telephone. The first play he ever recited in public was '■ Komeo and Juliet. He had prepared a number of others, butthat appeared to him then to offer the most variety. He waa successful. In the first year he committed to memory no less than six of Shakespeare's plays. That was, he found, even for him, " too hard work," and since then he has done about one play a, year. Six months suffice for the study of a play. In this period he ransacks all the critics, and makes moat elaborate preparations, beside* committing the words to memory. " There are," he says, "'two methods I might adopt in dealing with one of Shakespeare's plays. I might get up a literary lecture about a play, or simply deliver the text. Neither ol these methods would be satisfactory to a general audience j neither of them would ensure success. The one would be too dry, and the other would not be interesting, and the play would not be understood on account cf the obscurities of the text in some places. My method is to combine the two — introducing the literary element without infringing upon the dramatic. In my researches and study I endeavour to seize points which will illuminate the text. In reciting I never find the least difficulty. The play appears to be photographed on my mind, and one scene follows acother with perfect accuracy, the characters passing and re-passing before my mind as in a procession. It would be utterly impossible for me to get from one play into another. I know the characters as I know my intimate friends." Mr Richardson does not think very highly of Shakespearian readers who require the text before them. Upon the occasion of his first recital he had the text ready for reference, but he has never re- ' peated this precaution. He says : "I like to influence them, and draw them along with me ; and that I could not do were 1 to use a book. The illusion would be destroyed." His relations with actors have been of * most fraternal character. A good actor ha studiee, and he has received great help from .the study of such actors as Irving, Jefferson, Forrest, Edwin Booth, Salvini, Barret, Mathewe, Adeliade Neilson, Madame Ristori, Madame Modjeaka, and Sarah Bernhardt. In the United States there must be a great deal of latitude allowed to church managers, for we find Mr Richardson giving recitals in churches there, and the universities threw their lecture-rooms open to hinu He has travelled and from what hi*, has seen, he thinks Americans are more interested in Spakespeare than the English themselves. Irving expressed himself as being more highly pleased with a Chioago audience than with any other he had ever had. Mr : Richardson reminded our representative that Irving considered Mr Winter, of the • New York Tribune," the greatest Shakespearian dramatic .critic living. Mr A. Clapp, of the "Boston Advertiser," is also very highly spoken of in the. same connection. '

If an^ambiguous statement is neither hem nor there, where is it?, ; . , \,' -