Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

307
...he is suave rather than genial, agreeable
rather than sunny* Ane, the sunshine of the
character being, to some extent missed, it is
inevitable that a greater emphasis should
seem to be placed on all that is coarse and
gross .
(2 February 1669)
£ra . like The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic Hews, felt
a lack of "unction" in the performance - that quality so
difficult to find, it would seem, in late nineteenth-century
comic actors.
In contrast to this group of critics was the opinion of
The Times, which found Tree "full of rotund geniality and
humorous suggestion 11 and claimed that he looked, walked and
talked "as though born to the heritage of corpulency 1** Truth,
in a similar assessment, praised his "jovial selfishness and
inoffensive sensuality"* It seems that, as the run continued,
the actor's ability to play Salstaff increased* In a notice
published on 15 February Th- Stage noted that Tree's "oily
chuckle" gave "a better insight into the character of the
'greasy 1 knight than wes before noticeable", and Archer, who
in his first notice (9 January) had complained that Falstaff
took his knaveries end mischances "too seriously", stated in
The World of 13 February:
Mr Tree's Falstaff seems to ripen and mellow with
each performance. He now plays with less effort
and far more apparent enjoyment than formerly. It
may still be objected, pefthaps, that his sensuality
is gloating rather than roguish, that his eyes roll
instead of twinkling,
In later years the performance beca e more and more elabor&te -
the prompt copies of the three-act version used from 1902
onward© are filled ith picturesque details, extending in
range from interpolated exclamations and farcic.-.l tumbling
to & touching final curtain, in which Falstafi wr,s left elohe,
dancing with F sm,- 11 child in a shaft of light 24 . Falstaff
acquired thct depth and geniality which on first appearance
he had If eked - in .L.Courtney's contribution to the memorial
volume which Max Beerbohm edited, he appears as "an all-fatness,
oozing out drink and a maudlin sentimentality at every pore",
a pe.formance both "ripe" and "unctuous" arid "quite ir esist-