Kean E
NAME: Kean, Edmund.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Most famous actor of his generation, credited with (re)introducing a more ‘natural’ acting style.
NICKNAME/ALIAS: Also known as Edmund Carey.
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: March 17, 1787 (possibly 1789, or 1782, there is no authoritative date) London.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: May 15, 1833, London.
DISCIPLINE: Actor
FIELD: Theater
LANGUAGE: English
PARENTS: Mother: Ann Carey an actress and “street peddler.”
Father: Probably Edmund Kean, an amateur actor, clerk and mentally ill alcoholic who committed suicide at age 22.
Edmund’s older brother Aaron Kean was sometimes suggested, especially as his mistress, Charlotte Tidswell, was as much of a parent as Kean ever had.
The 11th Duke of Norfolk, who kept Miss Tidswell before the older Kean brother, was a popular candidate among snobs.
SIBLINGS: A half-brother, Henry Darnley, of equally mysterious parentage.
SPOUSE: Married Mary Chambers, an actress in his company, in 1808.
CHILDREN: A son, the actor (John) Charles Kean (1811-1868). Another son, Howard Anthony Kean (1809-1813) had been intended for a naval career.
EDUCATION: Little, his educational history, like most of his early life, is obscured by layers of contradictory anecdotes. At one time it was asserted that he had attended Eton, though no evidence supports the claim.
MAJOR WORK: A series of performances in major Shakespeare roles (Shylock, Richard III, Iago, Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet), which reestablished the playwright’s reputation as a practical dramatist and drew new attention to the stage as a venue for important artistic work.
LIFE AND TIMES:
Kean’s early career was only remarkable in hindsight, he toured the provinces, and played minor parts in London. His career prospects often seemed more likely to be limited by his short stature than advanced by any remarkable talent. In a short season in Belfast in 1805, he attracted approving commentary from the great tragedienne Sarah <admired by> Siddons*.
For nearly 10 years Kean struggled; marrying and fathering two sons, and establishing his dual reputation for extravagant brilliance coupled with insane spree-drinking and unreliability. At times he was so reduced as to considering enlisting as a soldier to avoid starving.
By a series of fortunate coincidences, Kean was engaged at the Drury Lane Theatre (managed at the time by <hired by> Kemble*), making his debut as Shylock in Merchant of Venice in January of 1814. He was an immediate national sensation.
The theater of 1814 was not the Victorian Temple of Art it was to become. Actors were expected to be rough characters—an expectation that Kean met and exceeded—and audiences were given to literal rioting over cancelled appearances or raised ticket prices. Performance and repertoire were also a very mixed bag.
Shakespeare was widely performed, but usually in butchered “improved” versions; Hamlet, for example, usually had a happy ending, and no Gravedigger. It was not unusual for Kean to follow a performance of Hamlet with a “Grand Ballet called Chiron & Achilles . . . in the course of which Achilles enters in a Car drawn by REAL HORSES.” Or to announce that after an evening as Shylock: “Mr. Kean will recite Goldsmith’s celebrated Epilogue in the Character of HARLEQUIN. And will leap through a Balloon of Real Fire.”
At the time of Kean’s debut, the theatre was managed by an ill-assorted committee of amateurs (including <worked for> Byron*) under the guidance of <worked for> Whitbread*, the brewing magnate. Whitbread died in 1815, and rather than appoint a professional manager, the committee attempted to carry on.
The committee failed to hire a troupe of actors capable of supporting Kean, and allowed Kean every opportunity to display a very poor judgment in casting and repertoire. Drury Lane was losing money again by 1817, as one playwright remarked: “though Mr.Kean is saving that establishment with his right hand, he is ruining it with his left.”
Kean set out on an enormously successful tour of America in 1820-21. While he attracted great crowds and full houses, he also began to attract riotous crowds who subjected him to brutal heckling. Kean drew a vast amount of scorn in the US after the “Boston Insult.” (Kean had prevailed on Boston theatre management to add a few performances well after the end of their normal season. When Kean saw that the audience was too small to cover expenses, he refused to go on, and left town).
Thereafter, wherever any number of Bostonians could be roused by the tabloid press, Kean’s performances were interrupted by riots in which windows were smashed, rows of seats torn up and thrown into the orchestra pit, doors torn off, etc.
In 1825 Kean was named in a divorce suit. His letters were made public and his reputation, such as it was, was damaged beyond repair. His wife left him, and his son Charles, then at Eton, was temporarily estranged.
A second American tour kept his income flowing for a time.
In England again, he tended to drift from engagement to engagement, Drury Lane to Covent Garden, and the provinces. Kean commanded enormous fees, which he squandered on alcohol. Even at his peak, Kean was capable of missing performances, or staggering through them semi-comatose.
His conduct took a terrible toll on his health, both mental and physical. By the late 1820s his feet and legs, injured when he was young, were a constant source of pain, he often hobbled through a performance. He became notorious for his drunken rages, he was reported to show up too drunk to go on, only to spend the evening viciously heckling his substitute from the box seats.
On two occasions he attempted new roles, only to find that his mind was so damaged that he could not remember his lines. For the last five years of his life, Kean’s repertoire was limited to five roles: Othello, Hamlet, Richard III, Lear, and Sir Giles Ovverreach in A New Way to Pay Old Debts.
A season in Paris in 1827 made a great impression on the French romantics, including <influenced> Merimee* and <influenced> Alexandre Dumas père*, whose play Kean, ou Désordre et génie was premiered only 3 years after Kean’s death.
On March 25th 1833, Kean collapsed and died on stage during act III of Othello with his son Charles in the part of Iago.
ASSESSMENT: At his peak Kean was hailed as both the champion of a new naturalism, and a return to the skill and expressiveness of Garrick. His detractors admit his brilliance in sudden changes of mood and moments of violence. His supporters acknowledged his rather poor voice and his tendency to drift between ‘big moments.’
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Was influenced by the acting style of <influenced by> Garrick*
ONELINER: Edmund Kean, famous nineteenth-century actor
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Hillebrand, Harold Newcomb. (1933) Edmund Kean, New York: Columbia University Press.
Playfair, Giles. (1939) Kean, London: G. Bless.
Disher, Maurice Wilson, Mad Genius: a biography of Edmund Kean with particular reference to the women who made and unmade him, New York: Hutchinson. 1950
Fitzsimons, Raymund, Edmund Kean: Fire from Heaven. London: Hamilton. 1976