New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-12-22
MUSIC AND THE DRAMA.
MCCULLOUGH AS OTHELLO.

Mfll ILOlGh 40 vi IEI'l4O'
In his performance of OhetI0-which was seem
with deep interest and sincere admiration, by large
audience in tho Fifth Avenue Theatre last night
MIR. Mccullough gives a shining complication of
the virtues of that English school of acting which,
for English classical works, the only school that
can be regarded rs right His OthCiIO is entirely
noble and generous in mind n whole-hcarted, I'M
suspicious friend and lover, a strong, true, whole
some grand type of simple manlinesS. When de-
luded and betrayed this great nature goes to pieces
in donum that is not less pathetic than
terrible; and, finally, recovering itself,
somewhat-at least to the calmness of despair-this
tortured and ruined creature drives upon slaughter
and suicide IA a solemn and memorable necessity,
and the fulilment of fate. In expressing OthetlO's
love for DeSdtmOHa the actor is absolutely and
beautifully pure, and therein he signifies his exact
knowledge of what this passion means TO man,
when 1t real There is nothing here of either tho
goat or the monkey In expressing Othelo's jealousy
he is by turns mournful. terrible and agOnized;
and he becomes dellrous; but he is never bcstial
In Oihelios murder of DeSdemoad he is, of course.
fearful but he makes the deed a sacrifice and not
a hideOus butchery. There is, accordingly, neither
lust nor horror in this portrayal of Othe0, but it
blends a sacred passion with n most affecting
perience of grief, and it closes in the submty of
pathos To say this is to say that it is true to
Shakcspeare's conception.
The tone of It's mechanism, furthermore, is poetic
Mr.. McCullough's Othello does not speak blank
verse as if it prose- make pastures against
the parlor mantlepece, nor smoke cigarettes with
IGgo, in any way employ those expedients of in
sipid, fagree ornamentaton peculiar to the per-
nicious triaing which is mscalled natural" art.
The execution like the mood, is level with the ex-
allied character of the subject and of Shakespeare's
poetry, and the delivery of the text is powerful
meIodous and delicate. An actors great
ness in OtheEio can, no doubt, be felt if not
measured, by the volume of emotion, of
the right kinds, that he is able to pour into the
poetic mould-the intensity of the love, the terror
and distracted passion of the jealousy, the pathos
of the death Mr.. McCulough's characteristic
power is that Of the heart. Wherever a flood of
manly feeling, under the stress OF aroused magma
tion, is exacted in tragedy, his nature responds
with the of SINCERITY, always guided by tue in
stinct of graceful art.
Through every portion of the work, last night
visible the steady guidance of a clear and
dominant intellectual purpose. There were no tricks
of arhtce misleading stops and starts, in the
Senate scene, to confuse observation as 10
the state of Otheil0s mind. and suggest the incip-
lent existence of doubt. Tho whole foreground of
the personation had the serenity of spontaneous
happiness. In the greeting at Cyprus there was
only that faint tremor of spiritual apprehension
which, in n passionate heart, the funess of Joy
itself creates. The solemn dismissal of Cassie with
all the sad suggestion of mauy grief and regret that
followed it, made OthelO's grand and ,wert nature
AS clear as the sun at MONDAY. IN Ao tsilutat.on