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

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The actress should take for granted the come y of the part,
which she had overplayed, and "concentrate her thoughts on the
dignity, the fascination - in a word, the poetry of fie
character" 9 . The least successful exponent of the role was
,:rs Benson, ,,ho played it , t the Lyceum in rarch 1900, during
the seventh week of Benson's ; o. cjori. Prank Bencon was Antony,
Oscar Asche Pompey, Lyall Swete Enobarbus, Go >rye t/ci- the
Clown and Lily Brayton Ir; s. The play v; s iven in four acts
and thirteen scenes (including the Galley), and needed twentyfive
irdnuteo of intervals. Jrc Benson was not very successful -
Bcerbolu.! re.: i\;ed that "the shadow of an automaton would have
been more welcome"
?0
. The Illustrated London News felt that
"mere languorous poses and deliberate intoning of Speeches"
were not r.n adequate substitute for "real abandon"t
Truth to tell, there is only one -ossible
Cl'-o-iatra i*j the theatric.",! v/orld - Sarah
•crnhr.r^t. For her it is easy to compress
the feline ferocity, the Oriental devilry,
the feverish vari->tions of mood, thet express
"the serpent of old Rile"*
(7 April 1900)
Antony and Cleopatra ran from 13 November 190 to T'3
February 1891, v/iien Co hlan*s comedy, r,:v: ! y :'.••. r tor, opened*
jJlii;. was not particularly successful, and v/as succeeded by
Young's Lineo. r"rey, another i'. iiurc v/hich L,P.Austin in Tlie
Illustrated London .r)_c\"js described rs "five rortrl acts a,.:c
j'ive costumes for rs £.;-nrtry" (IP A ril 1891)* Meanwhile
both n-inci^als v/oi/e in le/al difficulties. Corhlan vvre
declarer' b.-•nl-tn.nt in February, with unsecured debts amounting
to t'rree thousand, one hundred and t reive pounds, four shillings
and two pence. In court he revealed thrt he was living in
furni^hcc: rccoiaodation in Picc.^dill'Knu^^ocr thirty-one) ot a
rent of four pounds -,vec^ly, and thciu his r.rlr.ry fron re
Langtry was fifty pounds a nirht, v;it!: a pL.yn.--it of tv/o
hundred pounds to cov-r hio trnvelliric expenses from 'ev; York,
and an a- diti »ruil tv.o hundred in _\ spect oi his ^1 ,/» In Hew
York he had been accuctoned to receive seventy po' .uic'.s r. woe':.
ost of the debts were rccoo/vfcs unpaid on his doo; rL'ure for
the Unitec 1 -t :tesin irP-7 (The Pall lAall it-sc-t-G, IP febr^i ry
1891/. «t r tine '.hen Ellen Terry w^s c z\:v;iiv- a tonrinf taltry