While endeavouring to avoid the scornful glances of those who walk the upright paths of earth, I must confess to something akin to admiration for Shakespeare's Richard, Duke of Gloucester. "Afterwards Richard III." appeals to me. He was a man of purpose and did what he set out to do. He opens the play and tells himself and his audience that he's an out-and-out blackguard; that he cannot play the lover, so means to play the rogue. He's out for a crown, with both eyes open for a throne, and means to get them even if he has to murder a whole family tree of relations - and he does it; he gets there. That's why I admire him. I quite agree with Queen Margaret's curses.
Richard was an unholy villain, but he was frank about it before he started in earnest and nothing stopped him. Again, that's why I admire him. Mr. Martin Harvey gave us a Richard who looked better than he said he did, who was not such a monster as he described himself. Indeed, at some moments of his career he was quite a decent, pleasant sort of chap-according to Mr. Martin Harvey. I wish we had seen him hunch-backed, deformed, short and ugly. It would have been so much easier to have forgiven him his little cruelties. Mr. Martin Harvey's murders were done in a businesslike manner. The audience - as on a memorable occasion when Sir Henry Irving played Richard at the Lyceum - ticked his victims off on their programme, one by one, as he finished them. This much for Richard - he was a triumph for Mr. Martin Harvey.
Mr. Owen Roughwood's Clarence did not make our blood boil nor his dream set our hair on end. A grand piece of acting was that of Mr. Frederick Ross's Lord Hastings. Mr. Eric Mayne as King Edward IV. proved himself one of the few actors who can render Shakespeare's lines properly: The ladies of the company were all excellent. Miss Mary Rorke's Queen Margaret was a thing to see, hear, and talk about. Miss N. da Silva as the Lady Anne had formed a good conception of the part. She has had wider scope in other plays, but she knew her work as Lady Anne.
"Richard III." is mounted with disregard to cost. There are seventeen scenes and five acts.
The Playgoer and Society Illustrated, Volume 2 No. 9.