Perhaps indeed there is too
much of what is technically called execution. When we first saw this
celebrated actor in the part, we thought he sometimes failed from an
exuberance of manner, and dissipated the impression of the general
character by the variety of his resources. To be complete, his
delineation of it should have more solidity, depth, sustained and
impassioned feeling, with somewhat less brilliancy, with fewer
glancing lights, pointed transitions, and pantomimic evolutions.
The Richard of Shakespeare is towering and lofty; equally impetuous
and commanding; haughty, violent, and subtle; bold and treacherous;
confident in his strength as well as in his cunning; raised high by
his birth, and higher by his talents and his crimes; a royal
usurper, a princely hypocrite, a tyrant and a murderer of the house
of Plantagenet.
But I was born so high:
Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,
And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.
The idea conveyed in these lines (which are indeed omitted in the
miserable medley acted for Richard III) is never lost sight of by
Shakespeare, and should not be out of the actor's mind for a moment.
The restless and sanguinary Richard is not a man striving to be
great, but to be greater than he is; conscious of his strength of
will, his power of intellect, his daring courage, his elevated
station; and making use of these advantages to commit unheard-of
crimes, and to shield himself from remorse and infamy.
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