The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-10-23 00:00:00

ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE.

MR. BARRY SULLIVAN'S "HAMLET."
"Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," is in many respects
justly regarded as the most interesting and captivating
of all Shakespeare's Plays. The character of the Prince
is undoubtely one of the most trying parts for on actor •
to undertake who aims at achieving a position iii the
higher regions of dramatic excellence and fame. The
aspirant after success in the representation of the
melancholy Prince, must in the first place be, as the
Prince is, a thorough gentleman : he must not be too
old ; his figure and make-up must he on a level
-with the part, while failure, more or less decisive,
will 'eventually be the fate of him who ventureg
to personify the unhappy young Prince, withoUt being
endowed with all that infinite variety and versatility
of histrionic ability, talent, mid tact which the-
marvellous and elaborately wrought out conception of
the immortal bard inexorably exacts. Let us hasten: to -
say that it gave
us unfeigned and uninterrupted delight.
to witness the
irainiet of Mr. Barry Sullivan. It was
about the least conventional and the most natural piece
of acting we have ever seen. If it -was an artistic per-
formance to any extent it was such in the highest
and best sense of that term, because the part
itself, with which the actor has to identify himself,
and to repeat, is itself a work of art, and one of
the very
greatest. In short, the representation was
as original,
as pure, as self-possessed, as success-
ful a representation as it has ever been our lot to
meet with on the British stage. Macready and the
younger Kean have both been repeatedly seen by us in
this character, and we hesitate not to say that, to neither
of them can we assign a superiority over Mr. Barry'
Sullivan, whose idea of the part, and whose mode of
dealing with some of the most important points and
passages in it, are thoroughly fresh and original,—
thoroughly different from the reading and rendering
adopted by any one else by whom we have seen _Hamlet
attempted. This latter circumstance is itself an attraction
of no mean value. We feel as if we had stumbled upon
another old folio edition of Shakspeare, teeming with new
marginal readings, which take away our breath as we
engulph them, one after another, fast as we can
decipher the quaint handwriting in which vein after
vein,
of our newly-found literary treasure is brought to
light; leaving ourselves hardly time to wonder that they
had never occurred to us before. We have therefore-
not only to thank Mr. B. Sullivan for one of the very-
best Hamlets we have ever _seen. played, but we have to
thank him for one that we are convinced Shakspeare
himself would have been delighted to witness. Their
portion of space at our command for the present purpose
is already exhausted, and sorry we are that it should be
so. Let us close these rapid thoughts by saying that the
house last night was crowded in every part, and by advising
all our readers who have it in their power, on no account
to lose the present opportunity of seeing one of the very
ablest actors of the day. To-night "The Hunchback"
is to be performed, and we can confidently promise a
very great treat on this occasion also.

THE ORWELL AFFAIR CLOSED.—The Malta Times
says :—" Captain Paul Pilotti, Signor Settembrini, and
others who were sent here as prisoners on board the
Caesar, charged with seizing and running away with the
English steamer (Orwell, have been set at liberty, the
Home authorities having confirmed the opinion of the
local Government, that no lawful ground existed for
their arrest and detentign."