Transcription
ASTLEY’S RICHARD III.
In the production of Richard the Third at ASTLEY’S AMPHITHEATRE, Mr. Cooke has, in some instances, followed the system of alteration, interpolation, edification, and mystification, so successfully introduced by Mr. Charles Kean. Not always in the same manner, though; for whilst in Lambeth much of the effect is made to depend upon horses, the Oxford-street affairs rely almost solely upon animals generally reckoned inferior. Richard the Third has been curtailed into three acts—improved, our friend Brickles called it—a preliminary scene has been written, and the death of Clarence, is by poetic license, assigned to a period antecedent to the date of the play. This may, or may not, be Colley Cibber’s version—a version which we have not been able to avoid, but which we have devoted some of our years forgetting; but we are bound to say that, on the present occasion, when spectacle is by common consent the thing looked for, the original does not materially suffer. And the alterations made are candidly acknowledged, and the necessity for introducing “the peculiar resources of the establishment” honestly pointed out. Mr. Cooke does not set himself up above, nor patronise, Shakespeare. He merely does fairly is best under the circumstances. The result is successful enough. The scenery and spectacle are more resplendent than we usually find even at Astley’s, and the acting is very far superior. Mr. Holloway is Richard—a little too violent and ranting at times, but the balance of well-studied acting being considerably in his favour. Of course, it is a time,-honoured system to roll innumerable R’s at the end of a scene, and this is done; but in the scene with Lady Anne there is no over-doing; nor in the tent, where, by the way, the ghost appeared, as sensible ghost certainly do, in their habits as they lived, and not in turnip heads and lank night-dresses. The battle scene is a great triumph; the confusion of dead and dying men and horses being most effectively managed, and offering a grand contrast to the modern battled in brickdust and white duck which we have had of late years. Astley’s has assuredly taken a fresh spring at the end of this very hot season.
