The Nevada Democrat., 1856-12-24
nrenermotl as Rlehard 3.

performances, W nave given luil "nu NV
charcoal sketch of the scene as it should present
itself at the Nevada Theater. With this purpose
we attended on Monday night the first and last
appearance, we trust, which Mr.. McDermolt will
be allowed to make on our boards. 1t is true,
we had formed an estimate of the man, and Of
his motives in making SO ridiculous an exposure
of himself which has been entirely dissipated
after once having seen him on the stage. Had
| we the descriptive powers of Burke or Dickens,
with Hogarths or Cruikshank's pencil, TO illus
trate the scene on the occasion, we should fail
to convey faithful picture of the fantastic,
cruel, and ludicrous performance in which the
audience and actor bore an equally impor-
tant part. Had the immortal Bard of Avon
contemplated the base purpose to which this
wonderful production of his mighty genius
would come at last, the divine afflatus must have
fed from his mind, and "nature's child' had
never "warbled those wood notes' which have
charmed the world for generations past, and
will charm the world for generations yet to
come. ,.e s
The aspect of Mr.. McDermott; his figure and
gait we were far from being pleased with at
bis first entrance. and his exits we confess under
the heavy pressure from the rear were still less
in unison with the princely mein, impaired to
our conception of the character by reeollec-
ton of the bearing Of the elder Booth, and Gus
tavus " Brooke. His gesture, of which there
was abundance, was of peculiarly original
stamp; that is in the solilquy for that was about
all of the text which was heard, although he
went through with parts of the three first and
also the fifth act emitting for certain good and
sufficient reasons the encounter with shallow
Richmond. Mac seemed to have felt a strong
desire in every practicable case to "suit the
action to the word, and the word to the action"
and in his attempts to accomplish this very
valuable rhetorical point, he introduced spe-
cies of pantomme exceedingly useful amid the
noise and confusion which reigned over the
whole house. For an example--in order to illus
trate that ''all the clouds which lowered upon
our house are in the deep bosom Of the ocean
buried, (" he most admirably enforced the meta
phor by raising his right hand and punching his
first digit, deliberately and perpendicularly to-
wards the trombone man in the orchestra His
emphasis was strikingly impressive from the
force impaired to it by prancing up and down
on his hind legs and at last bringing down his
right foot with aforce which shattered to pieces
all the glass chimneys on the foot-lights The
voice of this modern Roscius, was ike plto
nothing which we have ever heard from lnpgs
of man. 1t somewhat resembled the cross be-
tween the buzz Of a gigantic musquto, aud the /
note Of that beautiful songster of the barnyard
commonly known as the Guinea hen. The tones
of that voice still linger upon our ear, as did
not the voice Of the angel upon those Of our
first parents in the bowers of Eden. o slaf
A singular fancy seemed to pervade the au-
dience that this was an appropriate occasion
for liberal tribute of vegetable matter
and Lancaster we are left to conjecture, as we
remember that the respective emblems of those
factions were the white and red rose. Upon
this hypothesis we are enabled to explain the
profusion of escuents, q commodity which rose
in the market on Monday and although evil
IDENTIFY intended as complimentary tribute to
Richard, came very near doing for him what
the bucklers of the Roman Knights did for the
faithless maiden who betrayed her native city.
Indeed, he might well have exclaimed, had he
played the act in which the passage is found:
vegetables tonight have struck more terror
to the soul of Richard, than could the substance
of ten thousand dollars paid in by shallow
fellows."aaa ) dns iou asa 1i s3or
These vegetables answered another purpose
which came home to ourselves They seemed
to be used on the part of the audience as an
auxiliary to the gesture of the great actor. II
occurred to us that the various kinds Of vegita-
BILE matter were intended as instruments Of
punctuation. In the early part Of the play
Richards speeches were very happily divided
!, by stops of various kinds, in which potatot
seemed to represent the comma, an onion the
semi-colon, turnip the colon, cabbage tht
period and the pumpkin as paragraph; while
string of sausages reminded us of the asterisl
, so plentifully found in the pages of Don Juan
But as the spectacle proceeded, and Richard
warmed with the heavy business. these points
were put in with no sort of discrimination, an(
poor Richard; the inspired form of the typo
graphical genius was knocked completely into
pi. These little delicate attentions on the part
of his hearers, Richard did not fail to appreci
ate, and after the first shower, he made bis ap
, pearance before the curtain, and declared that
he had played in all the principal cities of the
Plain, but this reception on the part Of the cit
5 izens of Nevada, exceeded in warmth anything
r which he had ever experienced. Loud cries Of
3 louder, with various expletves manifesting a
E cordial and enthusiastic regard for Mac, here
> greeted him, until he was forced to look rather
than speak the grateful emotions of his heart
/ Finally, overcome by the exhibitions Of the pop
ular admiration bestowed on him from all sides
he turned to leave the stage, when he was sa-
luted with fresh ovation of variagated escu-
: Tents, (which added wings to his speed,r and
3, prevented him from standing at all unon tho