By flashes of lightning

Press, 7 August 1976, Page 15

By flashes of lightning

Edmund Kean. Fire From Heaven. By Raymund Fitzsimons Hamish Hamilton. 239 pp. and indices. N.Z. price $12.65. (Reviewed by Margaret Quigley) In 1814 all London was talking of the amazing new Shakespearean actor, Edmund Kean. Even Samuel Taylor Coleridge, overcoming his reluctance to witness contemporary productions of Shakespeare, went to Drury Lane to see Kean act. Coleridge’s famous description, “To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning” is often quoted as expressing admiration for the actor but in fact Coleridge found him strange, inconsistent and unsatisfactory. The sentences before the famous words qualify them greatly. He wrote, “Kean is original; but he copies from himself. His rapid descents from the hyper-tragic to the infra-colloquial, though sometimes productive of great effect, are often unreasonable.” The words serve very adequately to describe not merely Kean’s acting but his whole life which was a veritable switchback of triumphs and disasters. Kean, who must rank with Garrick, Macready and Kemble as one of the greatest Shakespearean actors in

history, had an obscure and insecure early life. Probably the illegitimate son of an Irishman. Edmund Kean, and Ann Carey, an actress and prostitute, he was born in 1787 and earlv left in the care of Charlotte Tidswell, an actress at Drury Lane Theatre As a boy he showed a passionate interest in everything to do with the theatre and in 1801, billed as "The Celebrated Theatrical Child" he gave a virtuoso performance of the whole of “The Merchant of Venice." It was in this play too, that after long, frustrating years in the provinces with second-rate companies he stunned London in 1814 with his debut us Shy lock at Drury Lane. His performances that year in many of the great Shakespearean tragedies saved the theatre from bankruptcy but off-stage the mar whom Hazlnt described as “ail passion, all energy, all relentless will” showed these qualities to excess in a life of such debauchery that he shocked even Regency London. Often he was too drunk to perform. He frequented the brothels of London and entertained prostitutes in his dressing room between acts, he founded the notorious Wolves Club, was exposed as a cowardly liar in a sordid divorce case, and in Boston after his behaviour on tour had scandalised America he was bombarded with missiles and hissed off stage when he appeared to act. He collapsed on the stage of Drury Lane w'hen playing Othello to his son's lago, and two months later died at the age of 45. Raymund Fitzsimmons, who has made a special study of nineteenth century theatre has told Kean's astonishing and horrifying story very W’ell. He vividly recreates the effect of the actor’s electrifying new style and shows how Kean’s greatest achievement was to shatter the restrictions of the classical school of acting and give expression to th.' romantic “spirit of the age." Though obviously an admirer of Kean’s genius as an actor, Mr Fitzsimons is able to give a reasonably objective view of this bizarre and complex character, and he has written a biography which is clearly the result both of careful research and of a lively interest in his subject. This is a book of special interest to those connected with the theatre and of general interest