The San Francisco call., 1904-10-02
Greet's Company appears
Before Critical audience
in Classic Greek Thedter
Horat1o Prompts Prince,
But Not Shakespeare
WouldHave COachedHane

Comes Hamlet then, Ben Greet him
self. Mr.. Greet, Miss Constance Craw-
ley and John Sayer Crawley. by the
way, are the only members of the last
years company over here this year. II
'twere not Hamlet" as when Bur-
bage played. one might take excep-
ton to the Greet portrait. But surely
Shakespeare tore his hair occasionally?
can imagine him sometimes almost as
much annoyed as Mr.. j. G. Crawford
is about Miss MaZuma" as Fischer's
libel 1t. 1 must confess that person.
ally prefer a commonplace accuracy in
the lines to begin with to the variety
of paraphrase in which Mr.. Greet yes
terday INDUCED. Had I written it so:
For use almost can change the stamp Of na-
ture.
1 should vainly 1t prefer to the
For use almost can break on custom
That Mr. Greet likes better And
scores Of such changes might be in
stanced. Bad stage management, Mr..
Shakespeare. should call it. Neither
does it conduce to illusion to have Ho-
ratio prompting the melancholy prince
from a book hidden under his cloak,
nor to hear a siIver-voiced person be-
hind the arras doing the same.
We may be hypercritical these days.
but fear, gentle William, that Mr..
Belasco would not give you your salt
as stage manager!
As a characterization, Mr.. Greet's
Hamlet on the comedy side is delight
fully sufficient Gently cynical, lightly
touched in plastic, it is here a witty
and eloquent picture. Like those Of all
his players, Mr.. Greet's voice and
enunciation are constantly charming.
Every word is clear cut and in absolute
emotional tune. Hardly so convincing
one finds him on the tragic side. More
of reading than a Characterization
one finds the impersonatiOn here.
Hamlet, the tortured accuser OF his
mother, the Hamlet reused to a spas
modic fire-eating, one hardly gets the
spirit of. One finds again a substantial
philosophical quality in the portrait
But Mr.. Greet is a comedian, and on
this side notably satisfies. From the
picturesque side he is a better Malvolio.
Laertes, spirited, virile, human,
was admirably essayed by John Sayer
Crawley. He struck most gratefully
the human quality in his delivery, and
to look at made a 1.-THE and handsome
Dane. Constance Crawley was the
Ophelia, and with a fragile delicacy
of charm in her mad scene. She,
however, notably sinned against the
integrity of the lines, Mr.. Shake
speare. Slightly melodramatic, too.
were her emotional moments, but
there was a wistful. girlish quality in
the work, poetry, charm that fingers
gratefully with one.
To Leonard Shepherd fell the part
OF the king. Mr.. Shepherd evidently
felt the responsibility. However, but
that it became monotonous one liked
not wholly the pompOus strut of it.
PoIonius was good-but who ever saw
a bad one sage, sententiOus, OH
the droll humor Of him. And the
gravedigger! Three hundred years ago
they laughed as we laughed yesterday
as Maurice Robinson spouted his pie
beian wisdom.
Helena Head was the queen, and
full stately, with a notable emotional
grip.
After all, the plays the thing.
Hamlet" cannot be spoiled by any
company of players from Petaluma to
Tibet. And Mr.. Greet's are not OF
the worst Of these. The curtain felI'
splendidly on the cannons of the new
King Fortinbras and for the first time
one saw the dead carried out. And
one will not easily forget it-or the
rest.
BLANCHE PARTINGTON.