The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-04 00:00:00

PRINCESS'S THEATRE.

Mr. C. Kean brought his season to a close last night,
and in obedience to a warm and general summdns, at the
end of the play addressed his audience in the following
terms :

"Ladies and Gentlemen,—At the close of each successive
season it has been my custom to address a few words to you
in thankfulness your for kindness and support. The present
year, from various circumstances, in part unavoidable and
in part unexpected, has been to me a period of great re-
sponsibility, anxiety, and fatigue, relieved, however, by
expressions of public feeling and sympathy, the memory of
which can only fade with life. Contrary to my original
intention, I feel compelled, from the mental and bodily
strain I have undergone, to seek a few weeks' comparative
repose, that I may be the better able to bring to a success-
ful termination my next and • lest sea' on. Permit me,
therefore, to take this opportunity of announcing my in-
tention of re-opening this house on Saturday, the 2d of
October, and at the same time to stat 3, that on the 2d of
July next I shall take my find leave as director of the
Princess's Theatre. In the meantime, ladies and gentle-
men, allow me, in Mrs. Kean's name as well as my own,
respectfully and gratefully to bid you farewell."
Having in the course of a single season played the four
great characters—Hamlet, Louis XI., Lear, and Shylock—
Mr. Kean at last seeks a temporary repose, and closes his
theatre till the 2d of next month. Vast, indeed, have been
his labours since the opening of the Princess's in the autumn
of last year. The great tragedians of former days conti-
nually interrupted their toils by intervals of rest, deeming
the performance of a tragic part six times in a week too
much for human endurance. Indeed a reference to the
bills of old Covent-garden, or old Drury, will show a per-
petual variation of performers, tragedy commonly alternat-
ing with comedy, so that the leading artistes were able to
relieve each other. Had John Kemble or Edmund Kean
heard that one man had played King Lear for 30 or 40
successive nights before a London public, they would simply
have thought that an attempt was made to impose on their
credulity. It is well for the younger men of the present
generation to be aware of these facts. They have been in
the habit of seeing Mr. Charles Kean's performances in
some arduous character announced night after night till
they have been led to imagine that one of the most Hercu-
lean tasks which an actor could undertake belongs to the
ordinary duties of his profession. In a word, what Mr.
Charles Kean now does as a matter of course, would, in
the "palmy days of the drama," have been considered a
miracle.

Let us briefly review the characters we have just enume-
rated. Hamlet is the scholar, the gentleman, and the sol-
dier, the " fashion and the mould of form," with grace in
every movement, and with all the attributes of youth, save
its joyous hopefulness. His tender, loving nature is bur-
dened with an affair to which his temperament is ill suited
—the office of an avenger ; and he would fain believe that
the supernatural voice which appoints him to a mission so
revolting is but an illusion and a cheat. Longing to spread
ous his arms to embrace his fellow men, circumstances com-
pel him to become a moody, solitary dreamer. How ad-
mirably is the very complex character of Hamlet appre-
hended and represented by our great tragedian, with all
the peculiarities imbibed from nature and produced by ad-
verse fortune I How perfect is the polish of his manner—
how sad are his reflections—how quick his emotions—how
clearly is the gentleness of his heart visible through all
vicissitudes.
Then we come to Louis XI., .a man of whose nature love
forms no element; all, in fact, that Hamlet is not. If cir-
cumstances in any way afflict him, it is only so far as may
servo to stimulate his energies and enable him to triumph
over every obstacle. The task of setting to rights a dis-
jointed world, which to Hamlet was so abominable, is a
delight to Louis, and he likes to perform it in the most
crooked and perfidious way. Worshipping his own crown,
he chiefly respects it because it assists him in becoming the
grandest trickster of his age. If there was no such thing
as another world (as if he could by any possibility destroy
his belief in it), Louis would be the happiest of mortals.
But his abject superstition, and the consequent fear of
death, are constant bars to his .enjoyments, rendering him
the slave of his doctor, while he tyrannises over everybody
else. None can ever forget the finished portraiture of in-
dividual character accomplished by Mr. C. Kean when re-
presenting the wily King of France. Exquisitely humor-
ous was the oscillation between earthly cupidityand religious
terror, till the more fearful clement predominated ; and as
the curtain fell on the wicked, withered, wasted King, we
almost shuddered to think we had smiled at villanies which
would lead to a result so awful.
From this earthiest of characters Mr. Charles Kean at
once soared up to the almost superhuman woes of Lear—a
man so grand in sorrow, and so remote from all connection
with real history, that we may almost regard him as a
mythical incarnation of paternal grief. The sarcasms spoken
in madness he delivered with all the point and subtlety
which are so remarkable in Louis XL; but in the hurricane
of rage, despair, and sorrow which shakes the bosom and
racks the brain of the aged British monarch, he displayed
an amount of power which only a Shakspeare could de-
mand. The intensity of the curse—the struggle of love
with the sense of wrong—the abandonment to a momentary
rapture on the recognition of Cordelia--can never pass from
the mind of any one who has seen our great tragedian in
this mighty part. Nor should it be forgotten that the
actor, while representing the outbursts of unrestrained pas-
sion; must never lose sight of the fact that he is depicting
a man suffering from the decrepitude of age. He must
seem to be urged by the mere force of his emotions, but in
reality all his artistic coolness is required to enable him to
represent the part with individual truthfulness. In com-
bining the wildness of passion with the curb of senility,
Mr. C. Kean achieved the highest triumphs as a native
genius and an accomplished artiste.
The character of Shylock is so immediately before the
theatrical world, that we need scarcely recapitulate its pe-
culiarities. We would only remind our readers of the
humanising effect of Mr. Charles Kean's acting ; how care-
ful he is that the Jew, often treated as a man-demon,
should stand forth as a man and a brother, not naturally
malignant, but forced with cruelty by the wrongs heaped
upon himself as one of a fallen people. Mrs. C. Kean, by
the exquisite delivery of Portia's speech on mercy, does
not more thoroughly convince us of the divinity of that
attribute, than Mr. C. Kean proves to us that Shylock him-
self would not have been opposed to her doctrine had he
lived in a land where the Hebrew is exposed to no special
indignity, but is allowed to take his place among his Chris-
tian brethren.
These four great characters, wo repeat, have all been
acted by Mr. Charles Kean within the limits of a single
season, one for the first time, the rest after an interval of
some years. The stupendous difficulty of the task thus
self-imposed was only equalled by the wondrous excellence
with which it was performed by our great tragedian.
At the end of next season the Princess's Theatre will
have have ceased to exist in its present exalted character,
as the restorer of the utterance of Shakspearian poetry, and
as the source of historical instruction to the multitude of
any class. For it would be vain to hope for another man
combining, in the highest degree, the attributes proper to
the greatest tragedian and manager, together with the qua-
lities of the gentleman, scholar, and the enthusiast in his
art. The loss of Mr. Charles Kean will be irreparable.

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