Booth's "protection" with some
yearning the next week when I played Desdemona to _Henry's_ Othello.
Before he had done with me I was nearly as black as he.
Booth was a melancholy, dignified Othello, but not great as Salvini was
great. Salvini's Hamlet made me scream with mirth, but his Othello was
the grandest, biggest, most glorious thing. We often prate of "reserved
force." Salvini had it, for the simple reason that his was the gigantic
force which may be restrained because of its immensity. Men have no need
to dam up a little purling brook. If they do it in acting, it is tame,
absurd and pretentious. But Salvini held himself in, and still his groan
was like a tempest, his passion huge.
The fact is that, apart from Salvini's personal genius, the foreign
temperament is better fitted to deal with Othello than the English.
Shakespeare's French and Italians, Greeks and Latins, medievals and
barbarians, fancifuls and reals, all have a dash of Elizabethan English
men in them, but not Othello.
Booth's Othello was very helpful to my Desdemona. It is difficult to
preserve the simple, heroic blindness of Desdemona to the fact that her
lord mistrusts her, if her lord is raving and stamping under her nose!
Booth was gentle in the scenes with Desdemona until _the_ scene where
Othello overwhelms her with the foul word and destroys her fool's
paradise.
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