Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1872-01-25
RRMlNrsonNCs.

Most of our readers will recollece
some four or five years ago when Bar
rett and Mccullough, the well-known
eminent tragedlans made their appear
ance at the Gold Hill Theatre, and
turned the play Of Richard Ill into a
burlesque. Their audience was q lib
eral and a~ppreciatlye one and enjoyed
the fun hugely, yet felt that the great
PLAYERS were rather sighting them.
We certainly did look upon 1t In that
light, and at any rate considered It as
a dramatic profanity for actors Of their
standing to thus burlesque Shakes
peare and accordingly did rather
scald them down for 1t In our local
column. Tho Golden Era Of the 18th
instant gives q well written sketch,
biographical and critical, Of John
Mccullough, in which the Aforesaid
episode is thus explanatively alluded
to:
Let us here be permitted an aberra-
ton from the hitherto "even tenor OF
our way" to narrate a comic episode
I'm our tragedlan's career. 1t happened
that he and Barrett were playing to-
cether Mt Gold Hill, State Of Nevada,
and on the particular evening in ques-
ton "Riuhard the Third" was the
play. Mr.. Barrett played Richard and
John Mccullough Richmond, who does
not appear until the Fifth Act. 1t was
on a Sunday night and Mccullough
had stood patiently In the doorway Of
the little theatre watching the pro
gress Of the play until his turn to 60
the stage should come. Whenin
the first scene Of the fifth act Rich
mond and other characters enter with
forces marching" the feelings Of John
Mccullough (Richmond) may be better
imagined than described when he saw
thati one molly individual with top
boots a great many sizes too large for
him, and q superannuated tin pot by
way Of a helmet, represented the
whole marching and standing" army
and embodied In himself all the avail
able supernumeraries Of the theatre.
The address which Richmond has to
mako runs thus:
"Fellows In arms, and my most loving friends,
Bruised underneath the yoke Of tyranny,
Thus far into tho bowels Of the land
Have VIC marched on without impeachment"
and so forth, ending with the appeal:
"In Gods name, CHEEKY on. courageous friends,
reap tho harvest Of perpetual peace
By this one bloody trial Of sharp war"
The situation was too ludicrous for
the risible muscles Of McC ullough. 10
save his life he could not have re-
pressed his merriment, as, changing
the plural form to the singular, he
looked upon the solitary and incongru-
Gus warrior, who. evidently not liking
the aspect Of affairs, was gradually
backing off the stage. In vain McCul.
Tough cried "Come back, come back"
Finding this Intellectual he called,
"Come on, my solitary friend,
And we will walop the whole OF England
Tho audience roared, and the scene
ended with a burlesque fight between
Barrett as Richard and Mccullough as
Richmond, In which the latter cried
"Kind heaven, I thank thee, for my cause Is
II Bsrrest's at to 1.-Two then let Mccullough fall"
The papers seemed to think they
treated the people Of Gold Hill with
contempt. They had no such inten-
tlon. The whole affair was one OF
those irresistible appeals to their sense
of the ludicrous before which all laws
Of decorum are powerless. With the
greatest love and reverence for Shakes
peare, the sight Of that 'tarmy,' unique
alike In number and In dress, would
have been fatal to the gravity OF the
seyerest aspect tragedlan ever wore.