There was no attempt to force the
personality of the writer into the foreground nor to write a style that
should attract attention to the critic and leave the thing criticized to
take care of itself. William Winter, and, of late years, Allan Dale,
have had their personalities associated with their criticisms, but they
are exceptions. Curiously enough the art of acting appears to bore most
dramatic critics, the very people who might be expected to be interested
in it. The American critics, however, at the time of our early visits,
were keenly interested, and showed it by their observation of many
points which our English critics had passed over. For instance, writing
of "Much Ado about Nothing," one of the Americans said of Henry in the
Church Scene that "something of him as a subtle interpreter of doubtful
situations was exquisitely shown in the early part of this fine scene by
his suspicion of Don John--felt by him alone, and expressed only by a
quick covert look, but a look so full of intelligence as to proclaim him
a sharer in the secret with his audience."
"Wherein does the superiority lie?" wrote another critic in comparing
our productions with those which had been seen in America up to 1884.
"Not in the amount of money expended, but in the amount of brains;--in
the artistic intelligence and careful and earnest pains with which every
detail is studied and worked out.
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