366

SMALL AND LARGE THEATRES.

the most successful melodramas have been those which depended on strong excitement in the story or incidents of the piece; for without these, all the splendour in the world will do nothing either in a large or in a small theatre. Splendour alone does nothing, or next to nothing, to the success of a piece."

Tickler. Well said Charles Kemble. One of the most delightful sights in this world, North, is a fine melodrama. Wiseacres, prigs, sumphs, and your general blockheads, abuse such beautiful spectacles; yet even they are not insensible to their fascination, as may be seen in the glaring stare of their great goggle eyes devouring the stage. That the Public loves the melodrama, is a proof that she is not so prosaic a Public as she seems to be when in the act of reading through the advertisements in a morning newspaper.

North. Worthy soul! she has some poetry in her after all— some imagination-some perception of moving grace or skillan eye and a heart-a soul-for the fairy world of enchanted cloudland and its floating inhabitants. I too, Tim, do dearly love the melodrama.

Tickler. What farther sayeth the deponent?

North. That there are certain plays which require enlarged space-for example, "Coriolanus," and "Julius Cæsar," and "Macbeth."

Tickler. All tragedies that involve magnificence in the grouping of the characters, in the incidence of the events, in the scenic shows.

North. Just so; whereas dramas of a humbler, of a domestic, of a more familiar kind, such as "The Hunchback". Tickler. A beautiful play.

North. Very-may be as effectively performed, or perhaps more so, in a theatre of very moderate size.

Tickler. Plain as a pikestaff.

North. Mr Macready's opinion coincides with Mr Kemble's. He tells us that he finds it much easier to act in a small theatre than in a large one,--and that for merely domestic scenes and simple dialogue, when there is nothing of pomp and circumstance attending it, he should prefer a small theatre; but as for Shakespeare's plays, that very few of them can be found which can have due effect given them in a small theatre. Even the Haymarket he thinks hardly large enough

KEAN AND DOWTON DIFFER.

367

to allow a fair acting of Shakespeare's Plays. In scenes where only two persons have been on the stage-and one of these Kean-he thought nothing about the size of the house; but when a great number occupied the stage, he felt the want of space and too great proximity of the performers.

Tickler. What say Young and Kean?

North. Mr Young does not appear at all.

Tickler. Extraordinary! The finest actor on the stageUltimus Romanorum. So must all have felt who ever saw him in Brutus.

North. Mr Kean prefers a large stage-Drury Lane. He thinks the intellect becomes confined by the size of the theatre-that in a larger one the illusion is better preserved— that the illusion is heightened by the somewhat diminished appearance of the performers-and that any actor, with a good enunciation, may be heard as well at Drury Lane as any theatre in the world-even in the one-shilling gallery—if the gods will but be silent

Tickler. And not keep perpetually performing "Olympus in an Uproar."

North. That an eye of average power can perfectly well distinguish the play of the countenance at that distance-and that there is this other very material consideration, that the faults of the actor are less observable

Tickler. Pray, how is that? Beauties all distinct, defects all hidden-how is that, pray?

North. Ask Mr Kean. You know Dowton?

Tickler. Well- -a first-rater of the Old School. How deponeth Dowton ?

North. "I am astonished," quoth Mister William, “at Mr Kean's opinion; because, when I am told that actors can be as well seen in Drury Lane Theatre as in a smaller one, I can as well believe you can hang a cabinet picture on the top of that tower, and say, 'Do you observe those beautiful touchesdo you observe its lights and shadows? No-I cannot see it at all.' That is my opinion as to the stage. Give me a theatre of moderate size, where you can be natural.”

Tickler. That "must give us pause."

North. Mr Dowton is then asked whether Mr Kean's acting is the more effective at Drury Lane or Covent Garden, or in a small theatre in the country? And he says, "much more to

368

GENIUS WILL TRIUMPH ON ANY STAGE.

my satisfaction in a small theatre in the country." He thinks that even a play like "Julius Cæsar" could be much better performed in a theatre of the size of the Haymarket, than in one of far greater dimensions—not only as regards the merit of one actor, but the whole body of performers, if they have any pretensions to acting at all. It was said by John Kemble, that about two-thirds of the audience at Covent Garden could see and hear well, and Mr Dowton is much of his opinion with regard to that: hear they may, for the actor knows he must be heard, and will bawl.

Tickler. And if he bawl, that third who could not otherwise have heard him, must be wonderfully delighted with his bawl, softened ere it reach their ears into a sound not a little extraordinary, but still a bawl; for, believe me, a bawl will be a bawl to doomsday, to whatever distance it may be projected by the action of mortal lungs, and of the organs of inhuman speech.

North. Then the two-thirds who would have heard the unfortunate man, or still more wretched woman, had he or she spoken naturally, must be placed immediately under the unabated bawl, and thence an inevitable universal headache.

Tickler. Yet, North, I love a large theatre. My friend Beazely, an architect of the first eminence, asserts that a very large theatre may be so scientifically constructed, that articulate sounds shall most audibly circle its entire extent; and how far off was heard the whisper of the Siddons !

North. Could we imagine one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies performed, in all its great parts, by consummate actors, in an immense overflowing house, so finely constructed that every auditor felt possessed of the ear of Dionysius, then, Tickler, would the manager "give the world assurance of a play."

Tickler. But performers, with feeblish faces that must frown, punyish figures that must strut, and squeakyish voices that must crack, before they can be at all tragical, on a large stage, may act very naturally and effectively in one of a corresponding size, and prove their popularity by bumper benefits.

North. The truth is, that genius will achieve its highest triumphs alike, on stages of all sizes, from that of Covent Garden, down even to the mud floor of a barn.

Tickler. Illusion! Did not Garrick, in his everyday clothes, in a small parlour, with such terrible transformation assume

GARRICK.-MISS O'NEIL.

369

the sudden insanity of a mother, out of whose arms her child had fallen from a window, and been dashed to pieces before her eyes, that women fainted in horror at his feet, on "acting of that dreadful thing?"

North. Good. And had he come on a stage, wide as a wilderness, hearts far remote in the galleries as in the clouds, would have beat

"At every flash of his far-beaming eye."

Tickler. Good.

North. Mr Matthews and I are at one when he says, that the magnificence of the style of John Kemble and his sister were seen to as great effect in a large theatre as in a small one; but there are a great number of persons1 whose countenance alone carries them to small theatres, for they cannot be seen to the same advantage in a large one. But Charles adds

wisely, "I never heard that objection stated, during a fashion to run after everything attractive; I never heard any people say, they could not see Miss O'Neil; she was a beautiful actress, and everybody admired her".

Tickler. All the world and his wife.

North. My esteemed friend then observes, that he finds "all the people who go in with orders, say the theatres are far too large, but those who pay for their admission are good-tempered."

Tickler. Our provincial theatres, compared with the great London ones, are all small-yet

North. Except that in Glasgow. It is of the same class as Covent Garden, but of a peculiar construction. It may be divided into three parts; in one you cannot hear, in another you cannot see, and in the third you can neither see nor hear. I remember once sitting alone in the third division—and never before or since have I had such a profound feeling of the power of solitude.

Tickler. I say, our provincial theatres are all of moderate size; yet when stars appear, are they not worshipped? All our great performers have trod the Edinburgh stage; and there has been "hush as deep as death," followed by peals of thunder.

North. And where else than on provincial boards have great performers been bred ?

1 i.e. Actors.

VOL. III.

2 A

370

DRIFT OF THE DISCUSSION.

Tickler. Has this discussion any drift?

North. Oh, yes. Without joining the cry against the size of the Great London Theatres, I for one am clear for putting an end to their monopoly of the regular drama. In theatres of a smaller size, it may be, and has been, acted as effectively as in them; and experience alone can decide whether with Freedom of Trade it will flourish or decay.

Tickler. It has not flourished under Patents-without them it may.

North. Sir Charles Wetherell would not listen with patience to any proposed change in the Close System, nor agree to Mr Bulwer's motion, unless he could prove to him that the multiplication of theatres will "give us another Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and restore the golden age of Dramatic Literature."

Tickler. That was rather a little unreasonable in our most excellent friend.

North. Rather. Another Ben Jonson may be imaginedthough one is quite enough; but Mr Bulwer expressed no hope of being able, by any efforts of his in Parliament, to produce another Shakespeare.

Tickler. Nor yet, so far as I have heard, to restore the Golden Age

North. Not he. But seeing the regular drama in a languishing condition at the Great Houses, and, as Sir Charles himself says, "Lions and Tigers, and Cameleopards, and, in fact, the whole of Noah's Ark trotted up and down the stage," he thinks, that were there several moderate-sized theatres judiciously set down in the Mighty Metropolis, such would be the resort to them of respectable and well-educated people, that they would always be able to engage, and would probably sometimes produce, excellent actors; and that thus a permanent love of the regular drama (along with an occasional passion for the irregular) would be created, and more encouragement given than at present to men of genius to write for the stage.

Tickler. I should have voted for Mr Bulwer's motion.

North. Charles Kemble has no doubt, that along with the patents would go the very life of the Two Great Theatres.

Tickler. I should be sorry for that-but they could be van