Show r 1 i f 4 t t ta I a S THE TUE HERALDS f J I Home Study eo i 4 4 t 1 iss Eato aton Directed by Prof Seymour Eaton 4 44 4 9 I m POPULATE POPULAR STUDIES s IN I f t ti tc J i Contributors to this course c u Dr Ed E Edward Edward I ward William J Rolfe Dr Dri i Hamilton W Mable lf ble Dr Tr Albert S Cook Go 1 pr Ird Hiram Gorson Corson Co n Pr Dr Isaac N I I Demmon Dr Vida D Scudder and 0 others v S SRICHARD XI RICHARD IlL III The Play Pl y as as an tUiA Acting A ti ig Drama lm D It must never nenor be bt forgotten that I Shakespeare aa na a dramatist t was waa a n pro fe lonal l playwright His Hia plays pla s were written for immediate use upon the th staga If It we WEt would think of them as asi i Shakespeare thought oC or them we must think tWP pf them as acting dramas Shakespeare is usually credited with giving to the th world worlO the worlds eon con i ns of or af English history ry so far r r as t th historical rl 1 characters et s of f his 18 pys I i cc 5 I 1 j I r si 1 tL 5 C 4 C I 1 a 4 I I L Li Si i G ukI l lr COOKE AS RICHARD S j are ar concerned If this is true of any historical character of SIl It of his hl hi King Rich Richard Richard ard anti III HI The It rAl rai knows knOtts little and cares Tess less for tor any Richard Richardin in lIT other othel than him whom Shakespeare Shak re When reading King lUng Richard III we take some Interest in the subordinate characters of the th play The Lady Anne Queen Elizabeth Queen Margaret t the young princes Buckingham Lord Lora Riv Thy Rivers ers err Hastings etc eta all enlist our sym sympathies pathier more Or less tes But when we weKing see seeKing seeKing King Richard Richdrd rd III played OUT whole Interest is centered upon the king him himself himself self He then becomes what he really aUy r Is one of the greatest most marvel marvelous marvelous ous out most astounding creations in the whole Shakespearean universe Our interest ii rv him dominates and tran transcends seend our out Interest In everything else It follows therefore that King Rich Rieb Richard Richard ard and III Ill is a 81 difficult role to play A Ala As Asin AsIn in la the cases of or King Lear Hamlet Shy Shylock Shylock lock and Othello only the greatest ac actors actors tors torn can do justice to It ItIn It ItIn In ono one respect King Richard III lIlls Is the tho most difficult of all nIl the Shake S Edmund Kean Kezin as Richard III IIIi i roles There Is ts not wot merely the I character of the man himself to SOS sus sustain tain tam but the characters of all aU the t e dif different different ferent erent aliases he assumes We Wet must remember that Richard does rosily really obtain the COn t of people to acts and cou of or f conduct which if he were not so coh a ft dissembler they would never consent to If It then the part be not so well sustained that It appears real and natural the action artIon of or too the play becomes become nonsensical and ridiculous The play was ws popular in Shake time as aft far as ae we can learn bean I the most moat popular of nf its day So often and so well was the play presented that BUrbage D the King Richard of Shake ago became bECam con conceptions conceptions almost the real King Richard That famous line lineA lineA A horse A horse he My kingdom for fora I a horse d 1 was as quite lIte aa no much associated a in the i i popular mind with and Boa Bos worth F laId Field as with WIH h Richard and L j l ld N NIt It 1st remarkable however hOever that ti i subsequent to time the play t a wrote If U fell 1541 I into disfavor This was war perhaps erh p ps part partly partly partly ly because of or its inordinate length It was necessary Elry to revise and condense con It It and the reviser and condenser Ir Irreverently irreverently reverently as we should hould say a ab U toted his hta own conception and treat treatment treatment ment meat It has thus happened that the play King Richard III Ill which the world has seen most of and heard most of is itt not J ot play at nt atall atall all aU but a version of it written by Col Colley Colley ley Icy Cn ber the actor dramatist and poet laureate Modern critics can cai scarcely find words strong enough to condemn what they call can tho which ab abher l her li er t made mad of no noble le pro iro production Nevertheless Never we must rem m mbel b bet bel r that for bout about yeara y Indeed quite down to vry vety fy recent Gib Gibbers bers bens version vernion of the tho play pay or some ver versIon sIon alen or oth of version ve sl n was the only King Ring Richard RICh in the world d knew It was Sir Henry Herry Irving Irv lug who on Jan 29 gave to the stage a King Richard III Ill arranged wholly from front text Shakespeare play was too long lon to be restored in j I toto Irvings version is not more than halt half or at most of the play playas as Shakespeare left it It I Almost all great actors act rs who have es essayed essayed sayed rayed Shakespearean parts at all aU have hav II essayed the part of King Richard III I It was in the part of King Richard III Ii i that Garrick made his first appearance on any stage in the little theatre of Goodmans Fields The young wine merchant appeared incognito incognito II nito but the success he won though it scandalized scan his family determined d his career His Richard III soon became becam i 1 the wonder and talk of the town And King Richard ever remained one of I greatest great t parts I John Philip Kemble Kem le Included Richard in IR in Ia his magnificent nt repertoire of Shakespearean arean characterizations But the part was too versatile le for stately talents The great King Rich Richard Richard Richard ard III Ill of g er ert was that tousle erratic genius George Frederick Cooke of whom Byron once said hay hav ha ing lug heard that a biography phy of Cooke had been written that two things were marvelous about him first that a man mano 50 10 o continuously drunk should live Jive long enough to have a biography and sec see second second ond that a man so much in his cups as Cooke was should ever have bave known any one sober be enough to write his biography phy Cookes frequent disappointments of the patrons who thronged his house to hear him hint in his great gre t part pant became at last too annoying to be endured endur I Once when he had vainly endeavored i to remember his line iines lines v he put his hands to tl his breast and simulating sickness hiccoughed hk out the words My old complaint The aptness of his self I description d was too ridiculous to re no remain remain nomain main He was hissed off the stat stage And yet it is i doubtful if It a greater Richard III than Cooke has hasI been be S ever n known I I Cooke it may be said was the first great g eat actor that ever eyer crossed the Atlan Atlantic tic ti to play in the United States This i he did in ip 1810 His principal play of course Iu e was King Richard III In His SUccess was enormous But his old complaint soon proved too much for hint him He died in New York untimely In 1812 lRI King Richard III was one of the prin principal principal principal cipal roles that greatest of Shake Shakespearean Shakespearean Shakespearean actors Edmund Kean Kenn Crit ics Ice le differ as to the relative excellence of Keans Ke King Kin Richard and some other of or his Shakespearean parts Haz mitt however who no doubt was the tho greatest dramatic critic of Keans day du says that Keans impersonation of the character was waS wa the most refined and the most appropriately any the stage had known In the scene with Anne he said mId no ito one could have Wave equaled Kean but the first tempter Keans death In King Rich Richard Richard Richard ard III death scenes it may be said were Keans tortes fortes was a n marvel of ot appropriate In lii the tho estimation dL at personal friends Joshua Junius J l us Brutus vas Keans great rival Opinions s differ very much as a to the quality of o Booths Bootha genius as com corn compared comPAred pared with that or of Keans in many parts But there ther Is no difference of ot opinion as to the merit melt of Booths Rich Richard Richard ard III Almost the t only adverse opinIon opinion Ion ever Upon It was that hat it was as an exact of Keans This waS wa in lit O ever When In 1825 Booth came he found foulad himself elf supreme jn in King Richard III In e other othel othe tragic part When ho he died 1 it seemed mett for the moment D as alt asiC It of or orthe the stage had ended It will ahn regret to the Tot lov lovers Totera ers era rs of Edwin and genius that he had not IR uth the advantage of familiarity with e examples example and noble Had this been so had hast he not nt for years been doomed to t act amid th the demoralizing influences of rough uncultured audiences there c Is little doubt that Forrest t ham havi ha haI r ranked with the worlds greatest pay PISY I Garrick with Mrs Siddons with Edmund Kean for his natural histrionic powers were wen of the highest hl heft As It was his Richard III was as a neble noble production though far inferior to hi hiS Lear his Othello and hiS hie and especially c to his his William Tell and md his Metamora King Richard R III was wan was the W r Booths most famous part and it is an fl interesting illustration of the de ce t of genius that it was wets In King Kins K Richard III that Booth greater son Edwin I Booth first made fame The Ther Booth was given to moods mood One night in New Ne In Ill being billed blUed for tor Richard III Ill he us annOunced to Me his son iOn who rho ho was attending him that he wa wet ill III illand illand and unable to perform Then the son pleaded that tin Un people would r be to appointed What can the they do without I you OU father he h cried cde The only reply that he h received was Go act It ft your yourself yourI OUr OUrI I I self And this at last he did Of course h he knew the part for every I word and tone and gesture of his fath fathers fathers fathers ers acting had long before been ab absorbed absorbed absorbed In his very ery being so 00 loyal and OUd dutiful a san ron was he But It tt was an anxious night for him His fathers clotheS clothed that he had to war were far farI I too big fur for him and slid he could plainly I see that the managers of the house home I were on the tenterhooks But Dut his genius I i carried c him through At the Cad nd of the tha play h that he had found his hie i vocation I I Note The study stud of King Richard j I III will be concluded on Thursday i The two concluding papers P in the Shakespeare course cour will be of unusual interest Dr Parrott of Princeton will ill present a paper on The Schools School of Shakespeare Criticism m and Hamilton W Mable Mabie m present a paper oh on How tol to to Study Shakespeare |