James Boaden, Excerpt from Garrick and his Correspondents
As I paid much attention to Macklin's performances, and personally knew him, I shall endeavour to characterise his acting, and discriminate it from that of others. If Macklin really was of the old school, that school taught what was truth and nature. His acting was essentially manly—there was nothing of trick about it. His delivery was more level than modern speaking, but certainly more weighty, direct and emphatic. His features were rigid, his eye cold and colourless; yet the earnestness of his manner, and the sterling sense of his address, produced an effect in Shylock, that has remained to the present hour unrivalled. Macklin, for instance, in the trial scene, "stood like a tower," as Milton has it. He was "not bound to please" any body by his pleading; he claimed a right, grounded upon law, and thought himself as firm as the Rialto. To this remark it may be said, "You are here describing shylock:" True; I am describing Macklin. If this perfection be true of him, when speaking the language of Shakespeare, it is equally so, when he gave utterance to his own. Macklin was the author of Love à la Mode and the Man of the World. His performance of the two true born Scotsmen was so perfect, as though he had been created expressly to keep up the prejudice against Scotland. The late George Cooke was a noisy Sir Pertinax compared with Macklin. He talked of booing, but it was evident he took a credit for suppleness that was not in him. He was rather Sir Giles than Sir Pertinax. Macklin could inveigle as well as subdue; and modulated his voice, almost to his last year, with amazing skill.…
It has been commonly considered that Garrick introduced a mighty change in stage delivery: that actors had never, until his time, been natural. If Macklin at all resembled his masters, as it is probable he did, they can certainly not be obnoxious to a censure of. this kind. He abhorred all trick, all start and ingenious attitude; and his attacks upon Mr. Garrick were always directed to the restless abundance of his action and his gestures, by which, he said, rather than by the fair business of the character, he caught and detained all attention to himself.…
With respect to the alleged unfairness of Garrick in engrossing all attention to himself, a charge often repeated, it may, perhaps, be true, that this great master converged the interest of the whole too much about his particular character; and willingly dispensed with any rival attraction, not because he shunned competition with it as skill, but because it might encroach upon, delay or divide that palm for which he laboured—public applause.
Mobile users, click here to return to the main page.
