The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810
History
The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810
Drama -- Periodicals; Theater -- Periodicals
The fame of this young actor reached America before him. Those who are
in the habit of perusing the critical productions of London or
Edinburgh, had learned from them that he was a performer of considerable
merit in a particular department, and of great promise as a general
actor. The most favourable reports of the British publications were
amply confirmed by American gentlemen who saw him perform in Europe; and
the acknowledged taste and judgment of a respectable literary character
at New-York, who engaged Mr. Dwyer for the manager of that theatre,
would have been of itself a sufficient warranty for the most sanguine
presumptions in his favour. Accordingly he was received by the New-York
audience for some nights with enthusiastic applause, and on the ground
of the reports of that city, the play-loving folks of this wound their
minds up to a strained pitch of expectation. In consequence of this, Mr.
Warren, who never fails to make use of every opportunity that arises to
gratify his audience, proceeded to New-York for the purpose of engaging
Mr. Dwyer for a few nights, if his merits should be found to correspond
with the general reports respecting him. Mr. Warren's own judgment
confirmed those reports, and he engaged Mr. Dwyer upon terms which do
honour to the liberality of his heart, and to his spirit as a manager.
Mr. Dwyer's performances here have answered the expectations we had
built upon the various criticisms we had read, and the verbal
communications we had received upon the subject of his professional
talents. We conjectured that his acting might not entirely, or all at
once, accord with that kind of taste which the actors we have been
accustomed to naturally generated in the multitude. His performance of
BELCOUR was as new to our audience as the chaste and natural acting of
Garrick was on _his_ first appearance to the admirers of Booth and Quin,
and for some time our audience could scarcely admire it. In some few
instances, indeed, a positive disrelish for it was openly avowed, and we
could not help feeling that those opinions were entitled to particular
respect as they could have come only by _inspiration_. Being uttered
before it was possible for the propounders to have formed a judgment by
mere human means upon that gentleman's merits. This we can aver, that he
had spoken only four lines, according to the letter press of the copy
now before us, when some person on one side of us remarked that he was
nothing to Mr. Chalmers, and in four lines more, another person on the
other side laid him down under another actor--but one, indeed of a very
superior kind to Mr. Chalmers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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