THEATRE ROYAL- "KING LEAR."

Press, Volume XXXI, Issue 4262, 27 March 1879, Page 2

THEATRE ROYAL- "KING LEAR."

Mr William Creswick made his third .appearance last night" iif what.is iustly considered Shakespeare's grandest and most 'sublime' tragedy—"King Lear." It is a>play hut rarelyrepresented, and it demands for the adequate rendering of the central figure a combination or qualificationa seldom found in actors of the present, day. Physical- vigor, without which the actor must-fail who essays the character of Lear, is tbe least of these qualification, and to this must be added the subtlest insight into the menial arcana to actually represent that fine .distinction between where reason totters" and'madness commences that is the dominating feature of Sing Lear's aberration. Throughout all the afflicted old King's ravings, the cruel ingratitude which has deprived him of reason is never for an instant forgotten,, whila, so monstrous is the crime of which his unnatural daughters are guilty, that he never seems fully to realise the truth which in all its deformity has turned his wholo kindly, Mngly nature to fury and wrath,'more terrible from its very impotence. In every phase of the part oE "Lear" Mr Creswick was truly the great artiste he has been .represented, ani if he never played another part in this city it would live in the recollection of those who witnessed it as a most perfect representation: The interest of the tragedy culminated in tbe icest gradations, from tko opening scene where the " foolish fond old man" bestows all his ' substance on Efganand Goneril, and hisstartof indignant and incredulous astonishment at the -enpposed cold-heartedness of his youngest child, to the supreme moment where, crushed in heart and brain, he kneels over the body of the murdered Cordelia, whom he has only regained to lose for ever. The tremendous .curse which he pronounces on Began was given with terrible earnestness, and 'equally 'grand' was" his wrathful invective when he realises Goneril's baseness and piteonsly -'pleads for liar love. The "passionate ejaculation, 'tS>K vSool, I shall, HMMtdr. was" apparently wrung'from W broken itsart, jand hnraght-'down aJbarst of applause?" act was investedwithft weird and Bup__s*ural interest that "held fho'

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