Page 76 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

THE STAGE-HISTORY
OF HAMLET

Several books of this size could easily be filled with the
stage-history of Hamlet. None of Shakespeare's plays has
been so often acted in Great Britain, nor in so many
foreign countries; and probably more actors have ap-
peared in the part in which, according to Macready,
'a total failure is of rare occurrence' than in any other.
Each of these actors must have expressed something of
his own intelligence and personality through Hamlet;
but not all the individual touches in all the renderings,
could they be collected, would be of great interest, since
by no means all of them arose out of any fresh conception
of the character or threw new light on Shakespeare's
meaning. Many pages could be filled with details about
the presentation of the two pictures, the conduct of the
duel, the 'business' of the Play-scene, the death of
Hamlet and other such matters. But many of these, and
many of the emphases on words, the pauses and so forth,
must have been devices for doing something different
from other people in a part that was always being acted
and was known by heart, during a long period of the
play's history, by most of the audience. Many of them
may have been (to quote Macready again) 'innovations
and traps for applause, which the following words of the
text have shown to be at utter variance with the author's
intention.'
Hamlet in foreign countries is another subject far too
wide for such a study at the present. From Lewis Hal-
lam in Philadelphia in 17 5 9 to Walter Hampden in New
York in 1918, and doubtless others later, Hamlets have
been many in America. Since Ducis's version was
staged in Paris, Hamlet has attracted (in Talma,Mounet-