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The Stage of the 'Forties 79
As a boy at Pittsburgh Stephen had delighted in the theater, and had attended a number of Shakespearean plays. Now, with matured understanding, he had plenty of chances to see more of them and to catch the music of Shakespeare's lines. In a letter to his brother Morrison,1 he mentioned the appearance in Cincinnati of the eminent English actor, William Charles Macready, whose performance the New York Home Journal [pi which Stephen was a reader) termed "a delineation of the beauty and power of Shakespeare."2 Following his engagement at the National Theater in April, 1849, the Chronicle reported3 that "this distinguished tragedian has been playing to crowded and fashionable houses/'* and the Gazette said4 that "Mr. Macready has won for himself here 'troops of friends' for he challenges admiration both as an actor and ripe scholar and polished gentleman." It should be said that Cincinnati applauded also Macready's great rival, Edwin Forrest, the American tragedian who used to declare5 "I play Hamlet, I play Richelieu. But King Lear, by God, I am Lear!" To this terrible intensity the critic of the Gazette testified6 in his report of Forrest's performance before "a crowded house" in April 1848: It was "a most powerful and truthful personation of the mad old King."
* Macready's repertoire then included Macbeth and"Henry VIII for the first time in our city." |
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