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Henrietta
Street Wednesday March 2nd
1814 to Cassandra.
“Places
are secured at Drury Lane for Saturday but so great is the rage for seeing Kean
that only 3rd and 4th rows could be got. As it is in a
front box however, I hope we shall do pretty well- Shylock- A good play for
Fanny.” Jane Austen.
Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean had debuted Shylock just two months previously,
on January 26th and had become an instant sensational hit and achieved
mythological status. Drury Lane had been on the verge of bankruptcy
and the management gambled on Kean to help rescue the theater. Covent Garden
theatre, close by, under the management of the actor John Philip Kemble was successful and Drury Lane needed to match that
success. Edmund Kean had been performing with a touring theatre group in the
West Country ( Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall) at the time. The
management at Drury Lane were prepared to try out new talent. Kean was proved to be their saviour.
Edmund Kean was born in March 1789 in the borough
of Westminster, London. The exact date is unknown. His mother was Ann Carey, an
itinerant actress and his father was Edmund Kean, who suffered mental problems
and was a dissolute young man who died at the age of 24. Edmund was adopted by his uncle, Moses Kean’s mistress
Charlotte Tidswell. She gave Edmund an
early stage training and a basic education but she failed to give him a steady
disciplined home. At times he lived the life of a waif and stray.
On the 8th June 1796 his name, which
appears on a surviving bill, shows that he played Robin in a performance of The
Merry Wives of Windsor. On Easter Monday
1804, at the age of 14, he acted at the Sheereness theatre working for
Jerrold’s company, for a mere few shillings a week.In 1805 he played in the
amusement hall in Camden Town. He later played for Michael Atkin’s company in
Belfast. In 1806 he played minor roles at the Haymarket Theater. He went on to
join a company run by Miss Baker. In 1808 he married Mary Chambers, a fellow
member of the theatrical company. Between 1808 and 1813 he was a member of
various companies on the West Country circuit including the companies of
Beverley, Watson, Cherry and Hughes. He played many different types of role
providing him with an important apprenticeship as an actor. His roles included,
tragedy, comedy, opera, farce, interlude and pantomime. He lived this strolling
player life for ten years. He suffered many privations, living in poor conditions,
not always eating properly. He took to drink and became an alcoholic. While he
was with Henry Lee’s company, performing in Dorchester ( Dorset) on the 15th
November 1813, he was seen by Arnold, the Drury Lane manager. This lead to him
being taken on at Drury Lane Theatre.
The Drury Lane Theatre.
An actress of the time, Helen Faucit, describes
him as,
“ a pale
man with a fur cap, and wrapped in a fur cloak. He looked to me as if come from
the grave. A stray lock of hair crossed his forehead, under which shone eyes
which looked dark, and yet as bright as lamps. So large were they, so piercing,
so absorbing, I could see no other future.”
By the standards of the time he was unsuited to
the great tragic roles. The style epitomised by the great actor theater manager
of the day John Philip Kemble was a declamatory style, artificial and statuesque.
Kean invented a new style full of passion, feeling and emotion. Kemble’s style
became defunct.
Edmund Kean generally portrayed villains in
Shakespeare plays.He played Shylock in the Merchant of Venice wearing a black
beard and played the part as a frenzied embittered monster, evil and armed with
a knife. His performance was a sensation.It was this performance soon after it
had debuted at the Drury Lane Theatre that Jane Austen went to see.
“We hear that
Mr Kean is more admired than ever. The two vacant places of our two rows are
likely to be filled by Mr Tilson and his brother General Chownes.”
Wednesday March 2nd 1814.
10 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, where Jane Austen stayed with her brother Henry.
Edmund Kean went on to play a succession of
villains such as Richard III, Iago, Macbeth and also played Othello and Hamlet.
Apart from Shakespeare he successfully played Sir Giles Overreach in Philip Massinger’s
“A New Way To Pay Old Debts.” He was Barabas in Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew
of Malta.
Nothing
about his performance was improvised. Everything was technically planned. He
measured out the number of footsteps he would have to take to various positons
on the stage. He used his voice, creating tones, semitones, rests, forte,
piano, crescendo and dimuendo like a musical score. For parts of a play he
would play his character in a low key bland sort of way but then at key
moments he would let the full force of
his emotions rip. Kean used his own forceful and turbulent personality to help
portray these characters. He repeated each performance almost identically. We,
in the 21st century, would have found his performances very strange.
Nowadays acting is a naturalistic style.
Kean was always admired as an actor but he became
more and more unpopular as a public figure. He was a megalomaniac and a
turbulent ungovernable genius. He feared
losing his place at the head of British Theater and jealousy towards his rivals
drove him. At his height he earned £10,000 a year an enormous amount of money.
However, in 1825 he was sued for adultery with a woman whose husband was an
alderman of the city of London and a Drury Lane administrator. The press turned
against him. There were hostile demonstrations outside of the theatre. The last
eight years of his life were a slow decline with drink and other excesses.
The Theatre Royal Richmond upon Thames built in 1899 near the site of the theatre Kean performed in.
Edmund Kean, often performed at the theatre in
Richmond. In October 1814 after a season
in Dublin which followed his sensational debut at Drury Lane he performed his
Shylock at Richmond. He appeared again at Richmond in 1817 and then at various
times until 1829. During 1830 Kean had a
farewell season in London followed by a tour of the provinces. He had always wanted
to manage his own theater. In 1831 The Kings Theatre in Richmond, a previous
name for the Theatre Royal Richmond, came up for rent and he took it on. He
lived in the house next door.
Covent Garden Opera House on the site of the Covent Garden Theatre.
As well as his commitments to the Richmond
Theatre, Kean still performed in London at the Haymarket and toured the
country. On March 25th 1833 he was performing Othello at Covent Garden
and his son Charles was playing Iago. He collapsed during the performance. A
few weeks later he died at his home in Richmond upon Thames.
A plaque commemorates him inside St Mary Magdalen’s
church in Richmond. In 1904, when the
church was being refurbished an extension was built over the spot where Kean
was interred His body was exhumed and he was reburied at All Saints Church in
the village of Catherington in Hampshire, just north of Portsmouth.
So what did Jane Austen think of Edmund Kean’s
acting?
To
Cassandra. Saturday 5th March 1814
“ We were
quite satisfied with Kean. I cannot imagine better acting, but the part was too
short and excepting him and Miss Smith. I shall like to see Kean again
excessively and to see him with you too- it appeared to me there was no fault in
him anywhere; and in his scene with Tubak there was exquisite acting.”
Praise indeed.
