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Updated: June 19, 2025
Hazlitt says of Kean's Othello, "The tone of voice in which he delivered the beautiful apostrophe 'Then, O, farewell, struck on the heart like the swelling notes of some divine music, like the sound of years of departed happiness." He went from Boston to New York, carrying with him a severe catarrh contracted in our climate.
If a company has to rehearse four hours a day now, it is considered a great hardship, and players must lunch and dine like other folk. But this was not Kean's way! Rehearsals lasted all day, Sundays included, and when there was no play running at night, until four or five the next morning! I don't think any actor in those days dreamed of luncheon. At the dress-rehearsals I did not want to sleep.
Persons who had schooled themselves to control their emotion till they had scarcely any emotion left to control, were repelled rather than attracted by Kean's relentless anatomy of all the strongest feeling of our nature.
Kean did with the part exactly what my father wants to do adapted his conceptions to his means of execution; but Kean's physical constitution was much better suited to express Shylock as Shylock should be expressed than my father's. Classical purity and refinement of taste are his specialties as an actor, and neither power nor intensity.
He seems to have been of beautiful private character, very honorable, affectionate, good-natured, no arrogance, glad to give the other actors the best chances. He knew all stage points thoroughly, and curiously ignored the mere dignities. I once talk'd with a man who had seen him do the Second Actor in the mock play to Charles Kean's Hamlet in Baltimore. He was a marvellous linguist.
Until now Forrest had seen no actor who represented in perfection the impassioned school of which Kean was the master. He could not have known Cooke, even in the decline of that great tragedian's power, and the little giant was indeed a revelation. He played Iago to Kean's Othello, Titus to his Brutus, and Richmond to his Richard III.
I might discant for hours with an enthusiasm which, perhaps, only an actor could feel on the marvellous details of Kean's impersonations.
There were private parties and dinners, and the old Theatre Kean's, with the manager's house adjoining was still standing on the Green, opening fitfully enough for a few nights, and then closing as fitfully. There I saw "The Green Bushes." Such a little Bandbox as it was! There were the two wooden staircases outside, of quaint appearance. Mr.
At this time I seem to have been always at the side watching the acting. Mrs. Kean's Katherine of Aragon was splendid, and Charles Kean's Wolsey, his best part after, perhaps, his Richard II. Still, the lady who used to stand ready with a tear-bottle to catch his tears as he came off after his last scene rather overdid her admiration. My mental criticism at the time was "What rubbish!"
I have never believed in their hardness, and have proved them tender and generous in the extreme. Actor-managers are very proud of their long runs nowadays, but in Shakespeare, at any rate, they do not often eclipse Charles Kean's two hundred and fifty nights of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Princess's. It was certainly a very fascinating production, and many of the effects were beautiful.
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