heater for Shakespeare's
"Winter's Tale."

THE CHARLES KEANS

1856

The Charles Keans from whom I received my first engagement, were both
remarkable people, and at the Princess Theater were doing very
remarkable work. Kean the younger had not the fire and genius of his
wonderful father, Edmund, and but for the inherited splendor of his name
it is not likely that he would ever have attained great eminence as an
actor. His Wolsey and his Richard (the Second, not the Third) were his
best parts, perhaps because in them his beautiful diction had full scope
and his limitations were not noticeable. But it is more as a stage
reformer than as an actor that he will be remembered. The old
happy-go-lucky way of staging plays, with its sublime indifference to
correctness of detail and its utter disregard of archaeology, had
received its first blow from Kemble and Macready, but Charles Kean gave
it much harder knocks and went further than either of them in the good
work.

It is an old story and a true one that when Edmund Kean made his first
great success as Shylock, after a long and miserable struggle as a
strolling player, he came home to his wife and said: "You shall ride in
your carriage," and then, catching up his little son, added, "and
Charley shall go to Eton!" Well, Charley did go to Eton, and if Eton did
not make him a great actor, it opened his eyes to the absurd
anachronisms in costumes and accessories which prevailed on the stage at
that period, and when he undertook the management of the Princess's
Theater, he turned his classical education to account. In addition to
scholarly knowledge, he had a naturally refined taste and the power of
selecting the right man to help him. Planche, the great authority on
historical costumes, was one of his ablest coadjutors, and Mr. Bradshaw
designed all the properties. It has been said lately that I began my
career on an unfurnished stage, when the play was the thing, and
spectacle was considered of small importance. I take this opportunity of
contradicting that statement most emphatically. Neither when I began nor
yet later in my career have I ever played under a management where
infinite pains were not given to every detail. I think that far from
hampering the acting, a beautiful and congruous background and
harmonious costumes, representing accurately the spirit of the time in
which the play is supposed to move, ought to help and inspire the actor.

Such thoughts as these d