The Night Olympia Went to War — and Nobody Shed a Drop of Blood

Keene's engagement closed last night with Richard III., a play that has been watched with intense interest for many generations — an energetic play full of schemes, fight and murder, a play of demoniac force, intensity, intellect, fire and power. Notwithstanding the bloodthirstiness of the misshapen Duke of Gloster, he was able enough to gain a crown which he afterward died miserably fighting for. Of all the characters of the immortal Shakespeare, that of Richard III. moves along with a trail of blood from beginning to end which almost satiates and sickens the bearer.

Keene is a great Richard. Perhaps the greatest on the stage today, save one, and his impersonation of the character last night was touched with a realism that was astonishing, and brought him thunders of applause. It takes a man of dramatic genius to portray through six long acts a distorted creature, a hater and a scorner of man, an absolute cynic, loveless and alone, disregarding all human bonds and affections, yet intent upon gaining the goal of his ambition — a crown.

Keene has that dramatic genius and is the coming tragedian of the day, since the departure from the human stage of those other geniuses, Forrest, McCullough, Barrett, and the retirement of Edwin Booth. The elder Booth, father of Edwin, was the very incarnation of the devilish, crook-backed tyrant, and delighted the English and American people in the earlier half of this century with his delineation of the withered and distorted Duke of Gloster, who burned with insatiate ambition to reach the throne of England. Keene possesses almost as fierce energy in the character as any of the great tragedians that have gone before him. He is still in the prime of life, with years of promise in store to send his name down the grooves of time as one of America's greatest actors.

Frank Henning's presentation of both King Henry VI. and Richmond were finished pieces of acting. Walter Matthews as Buckingham was good, and Miss Alberta Gallatin as the wronged Lady Anne, together with Henrietta Vaders as Queen Elizabeth and Mrs. S. A. Baker as the Duchess of York, mother of the cruelest character in English history, deserve especial mention. The whole support was admirable.

The theater was filled last night with as fine an audience as ever assembled there, and with probably a larger sprinkling of strangers than on any previous occasion. The members of the court-martial, now assembled in the city, were out in force, occupying the private boxes and scattered throughout the audience. To them the trumpets' blare, the fierce fight between Richmond and Richard, the marching and countermarching and all the panoply of fierce and bloody war must have been an instructive lesson. They may be compelled one of these days to set a squadron in the field and lead men where glory will strive with death at the cannon's mouth, but let us hope not. Last night was a war night in Olympia but there was no blood spilled.