Page 66 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

S T A G E - H I S T O R Y ki
Gloucester's attempted fall from Dover Cliff while
retaining the fine description; and the blinding took
place offstage. He even thought of reinstating the Fool,
but felt the risk to be too great—'it would sink into
1
burlesque in the representation'. This first attempt at
superseding Tate failed. His version became defunct
after the 1770-1 season, and for virtually fifty years
Tate was not again challenged. Garrick was last seen as
Lear three times in the summer of 1776, ending
2
8 June.
The next notable actor of the part was J. P. Kemble.
To Mrs Siddons's Cordelia he first played it in the Lane
on 21 January 1788; and five more nights before 15 May.
As manager of the company he took the role in 1792 and
1793, and at the King's Theatre, Haymarket; and at the
Lane in 1795 and 1801. From 1808 to 1810 his
management of Covent Garden saw him in it each year;
he also took it with him to Bath in 1812 and 1817. But
his sister, of whose talents Tate's Cordelia was unworthy,
ceased after the 1801 revival, and Kemble had to do
with lesser partners. His brother Charles he took as
Edmund in 1801, and as Edgar in 1809 and 1810.
Using Garrick's version at first, he reverted to Tate
from 1792 with slight restorations of the original; in
1810 this was advertised as 'Shakespeare's King Lear'.
As in Colman's version, Gloucester was blinded off
stage, his cries being heard in the wings, and his fall at
Dover was forestalled by Lear's entry.3 Kemble's first

1
Cf. above, p. viii, n. 1. On Colman's version see
Nichol Smith,pp. 22-4; Odell, r, 379-81; Hogan, II, 333-4;
Genest, I, 191-203, compares it with Tate's act by act.
2
On Garrick's Lears, see A. C. Sprague, op. cit. pp. 21-
40.
3 For Kemble's Lear, see Harold Child, The Shake-
spearian Productions ofy. P. Kemble (1935), . 9; Genest,
p
Viii, 131-3; Odell, 11, 55; Hogan, 11, 335.
N.S.K.L.-4