Book Description

Excerpt from King Lear at the Lyceum: Produced November 10, 1892; Some Extracts From the Press on the Performance of Mr. Henry Irving and Miss. Ellen Terry Veteran actor, who has for some years a retired from the practice of his profession, is understood to have said that hereafter "King Lear" will always be played as Henry Irving plays it. The great speeches of Lear as delivered with electrical power and majesty by the older actors are entitled to live in memory, and no one need be ashamed of having been greatly stirred by them. The foolish enjoyment of a wild and arbitrary plot, and the permissible and not discreditable enjoyment of the sonorous and impassioned and majestic delivery of the great speeches of the part, are distinctly lost enjoyments as soon as the new Irving tradition comes into vogue. More than once I have said in writing on Irving that the most distinctive symptom or mark of his special genius is that he often plays a scene - so to speak - more in reference to other scenes than in reference to itself. This is very rare. Not only is it not always found in the most effective acting, but it is often the very antithesis, or seems so, of effective acting. The practical rule, though unformulated, of effective acting is to make the most of each scene. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.