Everything about Charles Macklin totally explained
Charles Macklin (
September 26,
1690 –
July 11,
1797), originally Cathal MacLochlainn, was an actor and dramatist born in Culdaff, a village on the scenic
Inishowen Peninsula of
County Donegal, part of the Province of
Ulster in the north of
Ireland. He was one of the most distinguished actors of his day, equally in tragedy and comedy. He gained his greatest fame in the role of Shylock in
The Merchant of Venice.
As a youth he was an active swimmer and boxer; the latter activity was alleged to have made him even uglier than he was naturally. He spent his early manhood as an itinerant actor in troupes travelling around Britain; his thick Irish accent was an obstacle to success. He was acting at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1725; he eventually achieved a place at the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1733.
In 1735 Macklin quarrelled with a fellow actor named Hallam and accidentally killed the man by thrusting his cane through Hallam's eye. He was tried for murder, conducted his own defense, and won an acquittal. He married his former mistress, Ann Grace, in 1739; by this time he'd left his accent and the Roman Catholicism of his mother behind joining the Anglican church of his father. Their daughter, Mary Macklin (ca.
1734 –
1781), was a well-known actress in her own era. His wife died in December 1758; he married again the next year, to an Elizabeth Jones.
Macklin resisted playing Shylock as a comic figure, as had been done for half a century; he prepared for his role in an almost
Stanislavskian manner, researching Italian Jews like a modern method actor. He debuted on Feb. 14, 1741, in a production that returned to Shakespeare's original text. His Shylock thrust him from being an obscure player to the most famous actor of his time. King
George II saw the production and was so moved he couldn't fall asleep that night.
He played the role for nearly the next fifty years, as well as Iago in
Othello and the Ghost in
Hamlet. In
Ben Jonson's
Volpone, he played the part of Mosca. He was the creator of Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, a famous burlesque character; and he was
Macbeth at
Covent Garden in 1772, in a production with authentic Scottish costumes.
He wrote many plays, some failures, and some successful comedies, like
Love a la Mode (1759),
The School for Husbands, or The Married Libertine (1761), and
The Man of the World (1781).
The True-Born Irishman (1763) was a hit in Ireland, and a flop in England.
Macklin lived a tempestuous life, often involved in lawsuits – sometimes acting as his own lawyer as he'd in his murder trial, and sometimes winning. He died at least a centenarian; his wife gave his birth year as 1690, making him 107 at his death. Though it was probable that his wife didn't know his real birth date. It is suggested that he was born in 1710. (see tablet below).
Macklin is remembered today in his native Inishowen, where the Charles Macklin Autumn School is held each October in the village of Culdaff.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Charles Macklin'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://charles_macklin.totallyexplained.com">Charles Macklin Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
