After she had taken the poison, the exhaustion and paralysis of the system, the sad, cold, calm submission to Fate, were still more grand. The guilty love inspired by the hatred of a goddess was expressed in all its symptoms with a force and terrible naturalness that almost suffocated the beholder.
I admired her more in Phèdre than in any other part in which I saw her. On the dark side, she is very great in hatred and revenge. Her noblest aspect is when sometimes she expresses truth in some severe shape, and rises, simple and austere, above the mixed elements around her. She does not melt to tears, or calm or elevate the heart by the presence of that tragic beauty that needs all the assaults of Fate to make it show its immortal sweetness. Nature has not gifted her with those softer and more flowery attributes that lend to pathos its utmost tenderness. She can only express the darker passions, and grief in its most desolate aspects. Her range even in high tragedy is limited. On one single occasion I saw her violate the harmony of the character to produce effect at a particular moment but almost invariably I found her a true artist, worthy Greece, and worthy at many moments to have her conceptions immortalized in marble. I went to see her seven or eight times, always in parts that required great force of soul and purity of taste even to conceive them, and only once had reason to find fault with her. I was sure that in her I should find a true genius, absolutely the diamond, and so it proved. When I came here, my first thought was to go and see Mademoiselle Rachel. For the first time in my life I saw something represented in a style uniformly good, and should have found sufficient proof, if I had needed any, that all men will prefer what is good to what is bad, if only a fair opportunity for choice be allowed. Not one touch of that stage strut and vulgar bombast of tone, which the English actor fancies indispensable to scenic illusion, is tolerated here.
#DID JOHN MARSTON DESERVE TO DIE FULL#
Where the tone of discourse rises with manly sentiment or passion, the audience applauded with bursts of generous feeling that gave me great pleasure, for this play is one that, in its scope and meaning, marks the new era in England it is full of an experience which is inevitable to a man of talent there, and is harbinger of the day when the noblest commoner shall be the only noble possible in England.īut how different all this acting to what I find in France! Here the theatre is living you see something really good, and good throughout.
#DID JOHN MARSTON DESERVE TO DIE FREE#
The movement is rapid, yet clear and free the dialogue natural, dignified, and flowing the characters marked with few, but distinct strokes. If anything can be invented more excruciating than an English opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punishment of bearing it.Īt the Sadler’s Wells theatre I saw a play which I had much admired in reading it, but found still better in actual representation indeed, it seems to me there can be no better acting play: this is “The Patrician’s Daughter,” by J.W. Text: To turn to something a little gayer, – the embroidery on this tattered coat of civilized life, – I went into only two theatres one the Old Drury, once the scene of great glories, now of execrable music and more execrable acting. Marston, The Patrician’s Daughter, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London, 1848, and Jean Racine, Phèdre, Théâtre-Français, Paris, 1848 Fuller), At Home and Abroad or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe (New York: The Tribune Association, 1869 ), pp.
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