The Sun.
London, England, 1827-01-12 00:00:00

DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

Mr. Kean's Othello—his decided master-piece--attracted last
night a crowded and enthusiastic audience. It is, perhaps, the
finest thing in the records of the stage. Oarrick's Lear was irn-
pressive ; Kemble's Coriolanus stately and poetic; Choke's Sir
Archy Macsarcasm correct to truth ; but the Othello of Kean,
from first to last, through all its subtlest gradations of sentiment
and passion, is perfect. It does not, however, require the highest
order of intellect ; for the jealous Moor is far from an intellectual
character : he is merely an instance of physical feeling, worked
up to the highest point of suffering, and, from his love in the first
instance to his jealousy and madness in the last, does not posse's
one single sentiment that is not common to the humblest-minded
individual. What alone raises his character to the dignity of the
drama is the dreadful exaggeration of his passion ; in no other re-
spect is he at all superior to Forde—that felicitous model of a
jealous Englishman. Mr. Kean, who sympathises in an extraor-
dinary degree with Othello, gave every (even the minutest) point
with electrical effect. The character grew, under his hands, like
the master touches of a careful painter, so that it was almost im-
possible to believe it a mere illusion. The frank, off-hand delivery
of his address to the Senate—the first start of his mind at the
subtle insinuations of lago—its instant recoil—its return to pas-
sion—the rising swell of its fiery-.,.its convulsive up-heaving, from
the lowest depths of the spirit—the occasional tenderness, that
gleams in like a burst of sunshine through its storms---together
with its subsequent revenge--thew were pictures brought out with
such tremendous power, as with difficulty to be equalled, and
never to he forgotten. The annals of human suffering record no
deeper instance of unmitigated torture than that of Othello, when,
his last faint hope shut out—his wife degraded—his honour made
a mockery among men—the past turned into bitterness, the future
to despair, he looks around, and feels that nothing is left him but
to die. his cue, too, it should be remembered, was not that of or-
dinary men, under similar circumstances. He was not only one
of a proscribed nation, but a man "far declined into the vale of
years ;" arrived at a period when the mind, having long since lost
its youthful elasticity, if it be once disappointed in its affections,
can know no refuge but the grave. Youth may spring up again,
after the first blast of agony has blown over it—age never. All these
conflicting emotions Kean gave with agonising reality : his deli-
very of " not a jot—a jot," when lago sarcastically exhorts him to
mercy, was truly demoniac, and afforded a thrilling contrast to
the melting tenderness of "my wife—what wife ?" which
he asks in reply to Emilia'ninquiries after the deceased Desdemona.
Mr. Wallack's lago was a failure, it is, in fact, a character far
above his reach in intellect, is full of epigram and antithesis, and
displays throughout a knowledge of the world to which he is ma-
nifestly a stranger. He seems to look upon lago as a mere every-
day villain, with a dash of redeeming jollity about him • bat he
should remember that his guilt is deep, masterly, comprehensive,
and his liveliness not that of unprincipled thoughtlennets, but
the settled malignity of a fiend. As for Mr. Cooper's Cassio,
especially his drunken scene, we never wish to witness a merei
prosing piece of morality ; he gets intoxicated as if he was chief
mourner at a funeral, (only infinitely less cheerful), and
reads his recantation with a voice, look, and manner, that
seem the joint inspiration of weak tea and toast. Why will
not this " deep-mouthed Bteotian," (whose left arm is a manifest
sinecure) confine himself to the more becoming regions of melo-
drame ? Has he no bowels of compassion for the patience of an
injured audience ? We hope he will take the hint—and de-
grade—as
they say at Cambridge. The house, we were delighted
to find, was crowded.