tirement from the stage. During this year Mrs. Siddons, the great tragic actress, played Lady Anne twice to Garrick's Richard.
Throughout the whole of this time the tragedy (in Cibber's version) remained a public and professional favorite. Many other well-known actors, besides Garrick, appeared as Richard, among them Quin (famous also as a Falstaff), Ryan, Spranger Barry, Mossop, and Thomas Sheridan. In 1746 Garrick challenged Quin to an alternating duel in the character, Quin appearing one night as a representative of the old flamboyant school of tragedy, and Garrick the next to uphold the naturalistic school. The public verdict:was overwhelmingly for Garrick. Charles Macklin (1699–1797), an actor of considerable fame and actual merit before the vogue of Garrick, played Richard four times at the age of eighty-five.
In 1789 John Philip Kemble (1757–1823) first appeared in the character of Richard. Kemble was not a believer in naturalistic acting and returned to the school of "high-erected deportment, expressive action, solemn cadence, (and) stately pauses." Kemble's dignity, however, was free from the faults of the ranting pre-Garrick period. "The declamation of Mr. Kemble seemed to be fetched from the schools of philosophy—it was always pure and correct."[1] Kemble played Richard at Drury Lane at intervals until 1802, and at Covent Garden until he left the stage in 1817. Mrs. Siddons usually played Queen Elizabeth to her brother's Richard, and another brother, Charles, played Richmond at the revival of 1811. The next year Charles played Richard.
George Frederick Cooke (1756–1812) after playing Richard several times in the provinces, appeared,
- ↑ James Boaden: Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble. 1825. See also Leigh Hunt: Critical Essays on the Performers of the London Theatres, 1807, for an analysis of Kemble's acting.
