Page 101 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

xclv HAMLE T

the Viking period, and himself wore no tragic trappings
nor Orders.
Briefer notice must suffice for some subsequent pro-
ductions, each of which, no doubt, has added something
to the infinite variety of Hamlet in the theatre. At the
Princess's Theatre in October, 1884, Wilson Barrett
appeared as a sane and resolute youth of eighteen. His
low-cut neck, his innovations in wording and his re-
arrangement of scenes were more discussed than his
conception of the character. In January, 1892, Beerbohm
Tree staged at the Haymarket a very elaborate produc-
tion, which concluded on the words, 'Flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest,' with an angelic chorus. He
inclined strongly to the sentimental: A. B. Walkley
called him a 'Werther Hamlet.' He cut out Osric and
much shortened the Gravediggers. In September, 1897,
at the Lyceum came one of the most beautiful of all
Hamlets, Johnston Forbes-Robertson's, with Mrs Pat-
rick Campbell for Ophelia. He followed, in the main,
the usual cuts, leaving out the Ambassadors and the
Dumb Show; but he restored, after several centuries,
Fortinbras to give the play its proper ending (Hamlet
himself lying dead on the throne which had been his for
the last few breaths of his life); he kept a little of
Reynaldo and he spoke Hamlet's soliloquy during the
King's prayer. His conception was of a sane, indeed
a reasonable Hamlet; and the beauty of its execution
has influenced all that have followed. H. B. Irving's
princely, intellectual Hamlet was first seen at the
Adelphi in 1905, and for the last time, enriched and
mellowed, at the Savoy in 1917. He went back to the
old cuts for the most part; but he left in the first part of
the Dumb Show, up to the entrance of the poisoner; he
rearranged the scenes of the second and third Acts for a
purpose which it is hard to detect; and he contrived to
throw more emphasis than was usual on the mission to
England. He too saw Hamlet as sane, except momen-