Edmund Kean

Edmund Kean
(1787-1833)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge said of the diminutive star Edmund Kean that seeing him act "was to read Shakespeare by flashes of lightning." Coleridge no doubt intended this is a compliment. It certainly reflects the dynamism characteristic of Kean at his best. William Hazlitt, however, complained that in spite of "...the research, the ingenuity, and the invention manifested throughout [his Richard III] ...there is... too much effect given, too many significant hints, too much appearance of study." He goes on, "Mr. Keane's manner of acting is ... a perpetual assumption of his part, always brilliant and successful, almost always true and natural, but yet always a distinct effort in every new situation, so that the actor does not seem entirely to forget himself, or to be identified with the character. The extreme elaboration of the parts injures the broad and Massey is fact; the general impulse of the machine is retarded by the variety and intricacy of the movements." Still Leigh Hunt rhapsodized that in Kean's acting he saw, "...the real thing, which is the height of the passion, manner following it as a matter of course, and grace being developed from it in proportion to the truth of the sensation, as the flower issues from the entire lists of the plant, or from all that is necessary to produce it.... Kean's face is full of light and shade, his tone was vary, his voice trembles, his eye glistens, sometimes with where the ring scorn, sometimes with a tear: at least he can speak as if there were tears in his eyes, and he brings tears and to those of other people."

But with the public, Kean was the dominant star of his generation. When his only rival, Junius Brutus Booth, surfaced in London in 1817, and they found themselves playing together at Drury Lane in Othello, Kean, realizing the situation, so out-acted the newcomer but the critic for the morning Post wrote, "with another actor in Othello, the Iago of the evening might have been fought great, but by the side of Kean we could discover in him nothing strikingly original in thought, vivid conception or brilliant in execution." Kean's throne was secure and Booth would abdicate not only DruryLane, but all of London and emigrate to the Americas.. But such security can lead to complacency. Soon, an article in the Champion appeared with the ominous title "Conduct of Mr. Kean to Authors, Proprietors and the Public." In it, the critic stated,

The interest of the proprietors, and what is more of the drama, must not be sacrificed with impunity to the whims and caprices of any actor. Mr. Kean, it is true, for want of a better, stands at the very head of his profession; and if he enjoyed his eminence with ... moderation, we should be happy to swell the chorus of his reputation by dwelling on his excellences. But if he bashaws . It-- I like to actors, managers and authors, and will suffer no other merit, among the first, to appear beside him on the boards-- no production of the last to be accepted or to succeed, that does not make his character the exclusive object of attraction and no wish or promise of the second to be fulfilled that does not chime in with his ambition to shrine, not only superior but alone, it is high time for criticism to look to the other side of the picture.