Morning journal and courier., 1881-07-20
Two lagos.
An English Comparison of Booth and
 Irving.
tFrom Na?m.llan's Magazine.J


 From Na?m.llan's Magazinel
 Good lagos" and bad there are, of course and always will be but the bad can be bad, one thinks, only by comparison. A positively bad ''Iago" seems almost an im- possible thing. It is difficult to conceive any actor. the poorest and baldest, as alto gether failing to interest in this character Again, there are so many ways in which the
 character interests there are so many
 points from which it may be viewed; so
 many different interpretations of it-differ-
 ent, that is, in degree-all possible evo1u-
 tions of the text and all, from their own
 point of view, interesting. Take, for ex- ample, the lagos" of Mir. Booth and Mr.
 Irving No two presentments of the same character could well be more different, yet
 how interesting are both.
 The character, as understood and pre- sented by these two actors, very clearly marks the distinguishing quality of their re- spective styles. The American 'tIago,' D clear, cool and precise, admirably thought out, never deviating hairs breadth from the preconceived plan design and execution marching hand in hand with ordered step from the first scene to the last; 8 performance of marvellous bal ance and regularity, polished to the very
 ing er-nail The Englishman's startling, picturesque, irregular, brilliant sometimes,
 sometimes less brilliant than bizarre, but dlWdyS 1TeSu dHu suggestive, dlWdyS DedFluS that peculiar stamp of personality which has often saved the acsor in his sorest straits. Mir. Irving's performance one car- ries away with one and thinks about MT. Booths, too, one thinks about-when re
 minded of it. Nevertheless, as work of art, an artistic whole, self contained and
 complete, to the 1atter's must in our judgment,
 be assigned the palm Mir. 1rving's is marred
 throughout by one great fault the fault
 which IS so commonly reckoned to him as a
 virtue, from which indeed he has often con trlved to extract virtue, but which, call it fault or virtue, yet remains one of the most dangerous qualities an actor can have-a perpetual striving after something new He Is never content to do as others have done, to find the same meanings in words that others have found, to read human nature us others read it. It has been truly said of MT. Irving that he IS never commonplace but l it should also be remembered that this freedom from commonplace may some- l times be purchased at the expense of | common sense. Merely to be unlike l others is nos necessarily to be superior to 1 others, though undoubtedly this is a form of | superiority very highly prized in these days | Some of Mr. Irvings best work, his most valuable work, as well as his most popular, | has certainly been inspired by this quality; | but no less certainly has 1t pricked him on not unfrequently to some very daring
 and extravagant flights. The more sober of his admirers have, of course, long ago
 discriminated these two phases, seen when l and how he was original because he had | really originated some new point of the
 character he was portraying, brought into fresh light some feature of his author hith-
 erto unrecogn1zed or disregarded and when
 he was original only in the form he gave to
 his inability to cope with the matter in
 hand. If we take his s'Iago'' as whole,
 the conception of the character and the form
 given to the conception, we find not an
 ''ancient," 8 poor soldier of fortune, but
 8 splendid, triumphant cavalier, wearing far
 costlier garments than his superior officer and