Edmund Kean

Fitzsimons, Raymund Edmund Kean : fire from heaven / by Raymund Fitzsimons. London : Hamilton, c1976

. Edmund Kean is a play about the mystery of talent and its sometimes flawed human embodiment. As staged by Alison Sutcliffe (Mr. Kingsley's wife), it presents a fascinating portrait of a man who rose from obscurity to the pinnacle of fame, who yearned for esteem and scorned respectability, who kept a pet lion, who compared himself to Byron and Napoleon, and whose accomplishments could not survive his excesses. In the end, a broken actor, Kean personifies the mythic figure of Shakespeare's imagery - a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/And then is heard no more. . . . All of his defiant mockery and bravado have been dissipated. Never a sympathetic figure, he becomes pitiable, or at least understandable.

Source: Barrow, Brian & Williams-Short, Yvonne (eds.). 1988. Theatre Alive! The Baxter Story 1977-1987. Return to E in Plays 1 Original SA Plays

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