[Illustration]
SIX RICHARDS IN THE FIELD.
A NEW ACTING SHAKSPEARE.
It is quite evident that Shakspeare, in its present state, is not suited
to the capacity of the existing race of tragic actors. On the same
principle that somebody is said to have gone to bed because the bed
would not go to somebody, it seems advisable to bring Shakspeare down to
the actors because the actors can't come up to Shakspeare.
It was once suggested that the play of "Hamlet," with the character of
Hamlet omitted, might probably lose some of its effect in dramatic
representation. If this theory is a good one, it follows, as a matter of
course, that the play of "Richard the Third," with six Richards instead
of one, must be six times as good as it is with only a single embodiment
of that extraordinary character. That this is the opinion of modern
tragedians is shown by their all requiring to perform the principal part
in all tragedies: an arrangement that could only be carried out by
multiplying the chief character in a piece by the number of individuals
in a theatre who want to act it. Whether the negative capacities of
three or four individual performers can make an affirmative capacity, is
an experiment that might be tried, at all events. "Division of labour"
is a very favourite project amongst speculators in the present day; and
if Messrs. A., P., and V., are separately unequal to the effort of
sustaining the weight of the crook-backed tyrant, why should not the
tyrant be cut into three—some actors, by-the-bye, cut him all to pieces—
so that each of the performers hinted at might bear a portion of the
burden? Mr. A. might do the love scene with Lady Anne; Mr. P. might
growl through the opening soliloquy; and Mr. V. might go to sleep
throughout the dream: an achievement which the drowsiness of his style
renders him fully equal to.
That the bard of Avon contemplated the possibility of something of the
kind is shown by the expression he puts into the mouth of Richard
himself, who, in making the well-known exclamation,
"Methinks I see six Richmonds in the field,"
may be supposed to have hinted at the possibility of there being six
competitors for his own position—that of hero of the tragedy.