Show MACBETH Sir Henry Irving Deliver an Ad dress on His Character NEW YORK Nov 20Slr Henry Irving delivered an address to the students of Columbia college today on The Character of Macbeth Sir Henry began by saying The generally received opinion regarding Macbeth has been that of a good man who had gone wrong under the influence in-fluence of a wicked and dominant wife The tradition has been in force for many years and was mainly due to the powerful portrayal of the character of Lady Macbeth by Mrs Siddons whose strong personality lent itself to the views of an essentially powerful and dominant woman and as the play was r not given as often as might have been expected the tradition flourished without with-out challenge of any kind save now and then some scholarly comment which practically never eached the masses I think we shall find that Shapespeare in his text gives Mac beth as one of the most bloody minded mind-ed hypocritical villains of all his Icng gallery of portraits of men instiictive with murder Sir Henry then by quotation of lines and lucid argument proceeded to defend de-fend Lady Macbeth and said I is quite possible that Macbeth led his wife to believe that she was lading him on I was a part of his hypocritical hypo-critical character tO work to her moral downfall in such a way We see similar instance of his hypocrisy in the scene in the first act when the witch salutes him with the new given title of the thane of Cawdor he answers The thane of Cawdor lives a prosperous gentleman The summing up of Sir Henrys idea of Macbeth was clear cut and not devoid de-void of poetic idea in itself Poetic mind on which the presages or suggestions of supernatural things could work a nature sensitive to intellectual intel-lectual emotion s that someone can imagine him even in his c contemplation contempla-tion of coming crimes to weep for the pain of the destined victim selftortur ing selfexamining playing with conscience con-science s that action and reaction of poetic thoughts might send emotional waves through the brain whilst the resolution was a grimly fixed as steel and the heart as cold as ice a poet supreme in power of words with vivid imagination and quick sympathy of intellect in-tellect a villain coldblooded selfish remorseless with a true villains nerve and callousness when braced to evil work and the physical heroism of those who are born to kill I A moral nature with only sufficient weakness to quake momentarily before superstitious supersti-tious terror a man of sentiment and rot of feeling Such was the mighty dramatic character which Shakespeare gave to the world of Macbeth |