New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1896-09-09
HAMLET /, FIT OUT.

ET EFT OUT.
The PRODUCTION OF PLAYS WITH
OUT THE. PRINCIPAL CHARACTER.
shalespeare's Play Was Never So Given,
but Other Plays Have Been ~ John
Brougham's Story of the Absence Of Po-
cahontas and How the Play Was Put On.
- ts-ssys :,
1t was Sir Walter Scott who furnish
ed the base for the proverbial express
sion, 9 Hamlet with Hamlet left out -
In the introduction to his t'Talisman''
he wrote about 'splaybill which is
said to have announced the tragedy of
Hamlet, the character of the Prince of
Denmark being left OUT AS in the
case most modern proverbs, the fin
ished : product differs in form from the
raw material.
There is no record that s'Hamlet'' ev-
er was acted with the character Of the
Prince Of Denmark left &t, though the
play has been acted in almost every 9TH
er way: In 1881, in London, the YER
sion OF the first quarto, which was print
ed IN 1908, was acted by amateurs.
They followed the customs Of the thea
ter OF Queen Bess' time, using no seen
ery q decorations, and the actors were
CARRIED as Raleigh and his friends were.
About the same time, too. Edwin
Booth and his company arrived at Hart
ford minus their trunks and gave three
acts Of the play in their travelling cos
tunes. Probably, however, the effect
was not vastly different from Booths
ordinary production Of the tragedy.
Then the Count Joannes and James
owen O'Conor acted the part Of Ham,
let with two readers, man and woman,
to take the other parts; and Bellew-
Kyrle Bellows father-read the play at
desk in front of the proscenium, while
the actors moved about the stage with
appropriate gestures and opened and
shut their mouths and said no words.
But most nearly approaching to SCOTS
omitted Prince of Denmark must have
been the performances where women
played Hamlet; Charlotte Cushman,
Miss Marriott (who made famous
PRINCE, Adele Belgrade, Anna Dickin-
son, and a round dozen of others tried
the part
But if ''Hamlet'' has not been played
without the prince, other plays have
been on occasion.
In the last century there was Han
nah Brand, a schoolteacher. She
thought she could write play, and So
worked on John Kemble until he pro-.
duced during the season of 1912 her
five act tragedy 'Huniades,' based on
Hungarian history. Kemb1e played
Huniades; Miss Brand played Agmunda,
the heroine. The play failed and then
Hannah Brand left out Kemble's part
and produced the rest of the play under
the name ''Agmunda. - AS before, she
played the heroine, and as before she
heard the play Kissed and damned be-
yond redemption.
John Breugham, however, really
played a play with one Of the principal
characters left out, though, as he says,
lit was frightfully dangerous expert
ment''
The play was his famous bur1esque
"Pocahontas, produced at Wallack's,
then on Broadway, near Broome street,
in 1856. Brougham played Powhatan,
Charles Walcot, Captain Smith; Miss
Hodson, Pocahontas; Peters, the Lutch-
man; and the play worked it's way up
in the public estimation. Let Brougha1n
tell Of his feat:
Zone evening Mr.. Lester Wallack
came into the dressing room where
Walcot and myself were preparing for
the performance, with the announce
ment that Pocahontas was missing and
could not be found anywhere in the city.
"What was to be done under the cir
cumstances we couldn't conceive. All
sorts of plans were projected, but none
would work. At last, in desperation, I
said to Walcott, Suppose we do it with
out Pocahontas!'
Agreed said Charley, who was
always bright, quick and witty. We'll
do it anyhow
"Mr. Wallack went on the stage and
announced that, owing to the absence
VI 44ASo AAOuSOA \CuS u uGA was SllS udu
eloped with somebody, the play would
be produced without her, Messrs. WAL
cot and Brougham having kindly con-
sented to fill her part.
*'For moment dead silence reigned,
but directly the fun of the thing was
taken in, and the people fairly screamed.
We went on. First Charley would say,
This is what Miss Pocahontas would
remark if she were present. and then
he would talk to himself. where is
Pokey?' he would exclaim, to which I
would reply: Lost among the icebergs
of Broadway. But if she were here I
know she would answer you in this
way and then I would give herspeech.
*'At the end, when it became neces
sary to join their hands in matrimony,
we didn't know exactly what to do, but,
looking around the stage, saw broom,
and, Selling it, I boldly advanced to
the front, saying, as I handed it to
Charley, Take her, my boy, and be
happy It brought the house down, but
it was a frightfully dangerous expert