William Hazlitt, born in 1778, was the son of a devout Unitarian Minister and as such Hazlitt was sent to study all the classic texts and mathematics whilst also training to follow in his fathers footsteps to one day become a Minister as well. Sadly William lost his faith and never became a Minister instead because of his background education in classics, maths and philosophy he pursued a career in the latter. Studying throughout the late 1700s the various attempts he made to write his essay on the human mind he had to eventually earn a living, as such he became a painter doing several commissioned copies of the masters in Paris and original pieces by him hung in the Royal Academy. In 1805 he finally printed his essay ‘An Essay on the Principles of Human Action: Being an Argument in favour of the Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mind’ and moved on to lecturing on Politics and wrote a book on English Grammar. Then in 1812 he got his first job as a journalist, he became a parliamentary reporter for the Morning Chronicle. In 1813 he started writing literature criticism and drama criticism for the Chronicle. That is the source for many of the essays within Hazlitt on Theatre.
Essays include: Mr Kean's Othello
The Tempest
The School For Scandal
Mrs Siddon's
Mr Kembles Retirement
Conversation on Drama with Coleridge
On Actors and Acting
Minor Theatres - Strolling Players
Hazlitt on Theatre is a collection of dramatic criticisms from the early 19th century. These are perhaps the first real reviews in popular print and as such are different from the type of work we see today. The essays are generally reports on how well the performance went down whilst also discussing some of the techniques he observed. Hazlitt also compares a lot of different performances of plays, when watching a Shakespeare he will compare different actors portrayals of the same characters. His knowledge of the Shakespearean text is also incredibly fascinating; he gives a very clear insight into the reading and interpretation of Shakespeare in the early 1800s. Whilst this is a good thing it also shows how drastically different the ideas on theatre at the beginning of the 19th century were than at the end. Coming from the Romantic era of Theatre Hazlitt will not have seen a true naturalistic performance of a play as the style was not yet prominent and was definitely not seen on London stages, in fact the closest he gets is perhaps the revolutionary work of Edmund Kean. However it becomes obvious throughout reading Hazlitt’s work that he is hinting at a more naturalistic performance and is urging the theatre to move towards it in his opinions, he just did not know how what he said in the 1813 would become the norm in 1913. The only problem I find with the work of Hazlitt is that his literary knowledge can occasionally colour his opinion of the dramatic work on the stage, in this he is in many ways no different from the other critics of the time who for example were shocked an appalled that Edmund Kean would go against the convention of what a Jew looked like in Measure for Measure, except with Hazlitt as I have said he would go to the text for evidence to rubbish a performance. I read his review of Kean’s Iago and was really excited to read in very good detail how Kean went about portraying one of my favorite characters but Hazlitt moved into what we would probably call today a rant, although it is well backed up with evidence, on how the play calls for Iago to be played. The irony of this complaint is that later on in the book he goes on to lambast Kean for listening to the Theatre Managers directions on how a character should be played, it seems for Hazlitt the words and intentions of Shakespeare are basically written in stone and that there should be no movement for artistic interpretation.
I initially picked up Hazlitt on Theatre mainly to read about the Regency superstar Edmund Kean but found myself drawn in by the way he wrote about the theatre, I could see in many ways the way the play was performed like a little video from 1813. It is amazing that Hazlitt is so widely forgotten today, for a man who dipped his toes in so many of the arts it is a shame he isn’t more lauded for his excellent work. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to read about the Regency theatre, to anyone interested in Edmund Kean and to anyone who wants to read critical examinations of the work of Shakespeare. A truly wonderful book that kept me fascinated throughout and one that is vital for any Theatre Historian.
Xtofer
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