Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 39, December 24, 1870.Various
General
Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 39, December 24, 1870.
Various
American wit and humor -- Periodicals
WALTER MONTGOMERY has been playing "HAMLET" and "OTHELLO" at NIBLO'S
GARDEN. So graceful and elegant is he in his stage presence, that I have
been obliged to decline to take MARGARET to see him. There is nothing so
annoying as to escort one's cousin (I think I have mentioned that
MARGARET is my cousin) to the theatre and to hear her express the most
ecstatic admiration of that "perfectly lovely Mr. MONTGOMERY." I have
suffered from this sort of thing once, and don't propose to subject
myself to it a second time. I do not consider myself a jealous man, but
as Mr. GUPPY finely and forcibly remarks, "there _are_ chords in the
human breast."
Last week, I referred in pointed, not to say Greeleyesque language, to
the REFORMING NUISANCES who insist upon improving everything according
to their own fashion. The NUISANCE, however, has this peculiarity, that
he never wants to change anything that really needs to be reformed. He
will insist upon bullying Mr. TILTON into total abstinence from the
mildest form of claret and water, but he never thinks of urging Mr.
GREELEY to a wholesome moderation in the use of objurgatory epithets. He
is clamorous in his demand that _Rip Van Winkle_ should be transformed
into a temperance lecture, but he is entirely satisfied with the
preposterous manner in which the clever but inartistic SHAKESPEARE has
thought fit to end his two meritorious tragedies, _Hamlet_ and
_Othello_. Now no one at all familiar with either of these two popular
plays can fail to perceive the gross faults of construction which
characterize them both.
To be sure, if we accept the theory of "HAMLET'S" insanity, we can
account for the preposterous idiocy of his conduct. But from the
greatest to the worst of our interpreters of "HAMLET,"--from BOOTH to
FECHTER,--there is no modern actor who believes in the real insanity of
the melancholy Dane. The fault of his folly, therefore, lies with the
dramatist, and not the actor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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